Working Title: Self discovery
by iiiionly
Summary: Estel, who has just been introduced to Aragorn, sails off on a voyage of self-discovery; making a pilgrimage to some of the sites inhabited by his long ago ancestors. Inspired by the HA & MPtT Yahoo lists sponsoring the B2MEM Passport challenge. Complete at last!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This story began life over at the 2011 Back To Middle-earth Month Passport Challenge, sponsored by the Hennth Annun and Many Paths to Tread Yahoo lists. I promised myself when I began writing in this fandom, I would never post a WIP. And here, already, I'm breaking my promise. But as this is to be written around the prompts for the challenge, and I have a good idea of where it's going, I'm positive it will be finished, so I'm dipping my toe experimentally in the WIP waters. It begins with days 4 (Mithrim), 5 (Menegroth) and 6 (Lake Helevorn) and the prompts were show a character overcoming fear, dealing with the consequences of isolation, and prove or disprove the theory greed is good._

T.A. 2951

A freshening breeze snapped the sails smartly above his head and blew up salt spray at the bow where he leant upon the wooden railing, grey eyes straining to see beneath the waves to the bottom of the sea. He had no fear of sea monsters, nor any other creatures of Ulmo or Ossë; no, what he sought beneath the waves were the ancient ruins of his ancestors.

Beneath the gliding hull of the ship, at the bottom of the Sundering Sea, lay the secrets of a heritage he had only begun to assimilate in its full import. He wondered if they had passed already over the thousand caves of Menegroth, and if ages of erosion had worn away the fell beasts and birds of the beech forests carven into the stone halls of his venerable ancestors Thingol and Melian. Or if perhaps the foam trailing in the wake of the stern had once been mist over Mithrim and the lake where Fingolfin's decimated host had long ago encamped at the southern end, opposite their betrayers, the doomed sons of Fëanor, following their desperate crossing of the Helcaraxë.

Shifting against the rail, Aragorn smiled briefly, picturing himself bent over the First Age scrolls preserved in Elrond's library, Erestor pacing solemnly behind him, listening and correcting, as he had repetitively recited names and dates. Oh yes, Elrond's chief counselor had been complicit in the training of Estel.

The smile faded as quickly as it had blossomed. No, not Estel; Aragorn, sixteenth Chieftain of the Dúnedain, distantly related to one of the most notorious men of the Second Age; Isildur, who had forfeit his honor under the influence of the One Ring. No longer could he name himself Estel, son of Elrond. And it had been Aragorn, not Estel, Erestor had educated. Pain masked as anger flared anew and his fists clenched over the railing.

They had seen to it he could name every one of the kings and chieftains begat by the line of Isildur, all the way down to the father of whom he had no memory. That he knew battle strategy, could think quickly on his feet, turn any situation to his advantage, remain level-headed under pressure, taught him everything he would need to know to govern a kingdom – yet kept from him the why of it.

Aragorn sighed. He could *hear* Elrohir in his left ear, as if his brother was standing in his accustomed place. _Careful, or those sighs will blow us off course._ And Elladan in his right, finishing the thought, _and it would be a long swim home. _

He was on this ship in defiance of Elrond's flat refusal to countenance such a journey – too risky, he had said, to travel by sea, especially to the Isle of Meneltarma. Few were the seekers of that fateful place that completed the journey home.

His brothers would have accompanied him, had he allowed it. They had argued persuasively for their inclusion in the adventure, and he was a bit ashamed, now, of his obdurate refusal to accept their company. But he had painted them with the same brush as their father and his erstwhile tutor, Erestor. Though he understood the need with his head, his heart was still troubled by the insidious deceit in which he had been raised. Many had been the assurances that he had never been outright lied to, and it was likely true. But he had learned his lessons well; _so_ had the mendacity of the first deceiver beguiled his hearers with half-truths and misdirection.

Somehow he must reconcile two juxtaposing truths – he had never been lied to, but his identify had been veiled from him as surely as if he had gone through his early life with a scarf tied over his eyes. He had been mentored to adulthood by people who had lived the history of the First Age, he had received a king's education, and grown up - he had learned upon meeting his own people - in an elegance and splendor that among the scattered Dúnedain was known of only through the ancient history passed down through the long line of lore masters.

He could not fail to see, as he stood at the railing suspended between water and sky on a frail vessel of wood, the distinct correlation between his physical and mental states. In the moment, he _existed_ merely, between the reality he knew and a foreign reality he could not quite comprehend. His fledgling hopes and dreams lay shattered at the feet of his destiny. Unless he could determine a way to integrate his past and his future, the present was likely to be in continual turmoil.

He had tried to explain this to both his father and his brothers, exercising everything he had ever learned about diplomacy and statecraft in an effort to convey the hurt and bewilderment without accusation or blame. In the moment, he had imagined his first foray into that realm a total failure. In response to the deeply felt, bitter betrayal, there had been words of reassurance and repetitions of stories he had heard multiple times, of others among his kin who'd been unpleasantly surprised by their heritage too. He had left the valley believing his voice unheard, his pain unrecognized.

Implicit in his youthfully awkward diplomacy had been how hard he had worked to measure up to the high standards of the House of Elrond. His coming of age had been tumultuous and not without heartbreak as he had struggled to come to terms with the fact that he would never measure up to his brothers in anything. In the space of a few short minutes - the tokens of his _new_ house laid warm across his own icy hands - he had lost all hold on reality. Arda must have shifted yet again, on its axis, perhaps it had flattened back to its original state; it had surely felt like another cataclysmic event.

In the end, the ache of deception had overwhelmed him, so he had said only that he needed time to get to know this new person that lived inside his skin – the one they called Aragorn instead of Estel.

Aragorn twisted the serpent ring on his right index finger. He had slipped it on as he had ridden out of the valley with only the clothes on his back, the sword of his youth he had forged himself under the tutelage of Glorfindel, a ring, a fatefully _broken_ sword, and Pelóri. Even Pelóri had been returned, though, since his brothers had caught up with him at the port of Lindon. For that, he had been thankful, as he had not wanted leave the mare with just anyone. He had raised and trained her from a foal and that had been, perhaps, the most difficult parting of all, for she had listened patiently as he had poured the troubles of his youth into her twitching ears. And never once betrayed his trust and confidence in her surety.

He thought now that _caught up_ was perhaps not the case. Likely, the brother's Peredhil had been tasked to follow discreetly, or perhaps they had beaten him to Fornost, as he'd taken his own sweet time to make the journey to the last remaining outpost of the Northern Dúnedain. He had not *seen* them until Lindon, but here under the flap of canvas and the cry of the gulls trailing the ship, with nothing but time on his hands and recent memories circling like sea birds above the mast, he could discern their fine hand in his reception among his blood relatives.

While it had been awkward and strange for him, there had been those among the adults who had known of Elrond's son's hastily contrived intercession and their welcome had been effusive and hearty. Among his own generation, the salutations had been a little more reserved. The return of the prodigal would likely threaten the hierarchy folks had become used to over the years of his absence. His coming meant change. It was his birthright to lead the people of the Dúnedain, and he had been raised to be a leader, though he had not expected it to be among men.

And thus his flight; from a responsibility he did not feel in any way qualified for, a kingship he did not want, and a people who knew him not at all.

If he ached for the familiarity of his adopted brothers at his back, it was his own fault he had denied their pleas. He had chosen isolation for a purpose and had found, in the back-breaking labor of smithing, a respite from the endless repetitive circling of his thoughts. While his hands had been occupied with the weight of the hammer, his mind had been required to measure the constant precision of the hammer's fall. Though the moment the tools were laid by the hearth and the gloves drawn off, the memories had been back, sniffing like hounds on a trail, at his resolve to keep them at bay.

But he had discovered some new things about himself, or perhaps uncovered some things he hadn't realized before, brought on by circumstances that, living within the protected borders of an elven stronghold, he had never been exposed to.

His personality had been nurtured around integrity, honor and respect; he had encountered few of those traits among the people of Lindon. The smith he had hired himself to, had not been the most honest man in the city, and though initially Aragorn had taken a perverse sort of pleasure in the situation, it had quickly begun to grate on Estel. In a way, it had been funny, since he had discovered both Estel and Aragorn despised intolerance and yet within a few short weeks of having deliberately made his choice, he had lost his temper with the man. Another thing he had considered long under rein – the inherited temper Elrond had worked so hard to excise from his would-be-king.

Strangely, pride, a thing he had never stumbled over before, had reared its head. The filth and squalor he had been forced to live in initially, due to straitened financial circumstances, had appalled him so intrinsically that he had forced himself to remain in the lodgings even after he could afford better accommodations. The slatternly woman who had taken him into her home, if the leaning planks and timbers that made up the shell could even be dignified with the appellation of house, no longer had to ply her trade in a drafty downstairs room. The house – per his bargain for the tiny attic dormer on the third floor – had been snugged up against the coming winter chill, then cleaned and painted so not only was she more comfortable in her own rooms, she had let many of the rooms on the second floor as well, and was on her way to becoming Lindon's most renowned Evening Star. Though only in Aragorn's mind had he gifted his landlady with the sobriquet, borrowed, tongue-in-cheek, from the absent daughter of Elrond's house.

This one would have had him repeatedly, had he been willing. He had vowed to put the other one of out of mind. She was far beyond his reach and even angry as he had been with his foster father, betrayal on that level was unthinkable.

Looking back on the experience from the vantage point of a few days at sea, it had not been wholly disheartening. He had learned some valuable things as well: that he was far more adaptable then he had imagined; that even though his dreams were nicked and battered, they could be reshaped to this new world; that isolation and solitude were accessible even in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the mortal realm; that humans were greedy for life, though not in the way his ancestors had been before the downfall of Númenór. Life, he had discovered in Lindon among his own race, was meant to be lived fully, to be experienced in all its extremes.

He had experienced the depths already, but something warned him it would be years before he knew the heights. Aragorn found himself greedy for life as well, though it might yet hold more unpleasant surprises.

His gaze returned to the frosted green waves. Were there peaks and valleys still, mountain ranges deep in the bowels of the Sundering Sea? Was the ship gliding over Maglor's Gap? Passing above the fortress of Himling? Had there been enough water in the black glass lake, Helevorn, at the foot of Mt. Rerir to have made the sea swirl dark and cold with its defilement in the first ages after the War of Wrath? Aragorn blinked, dismissing the strange visions conjured in the water, and shook his head, returning to more pressing thoughts.

He could acknowledge, now, that he had led a privileged and sheltered life for the last twenty years. Perhaps that made his heritage all the more frightening, for it was a vast uncharted unknown looming over his heretofore serene existence. If he let it, it could take him places, he supposed, he could hardly imagine. Which overall, might not be a bad thing. But if he let it overwhelm him, as he had done so far, it would consume him from the inside out. Whether inherited, or learned, it had never been his way to run from problems, and perhaps, he realized with sudden clarity, he had had the benefit of both. For he had watched his mother's patient persistence in problem solving and he had learned at the knee of a master problem solver, how to untangle the knotted threads of any dilemma.

If he could reframe a kingship in those terms, conceivably the threads he must follow in order to reconcile what he wanted, and what he needed to do, would unravel. He could remember now, too, that Elrond, though he had strongly urged the path of kingship, had also told him this was his choice to make; that whatever path he chose, he would always be a son of the House of Elrond.

The ship had slowed considerably during his cogitations. Wake no longer foamed along the sides and the sea was calm and crystal clear. Leaning out over the railing, he could see a froth of bubbles on the surface above a great school of glistening fish, and he imagined them darting about the stone pillars of Nargothrond or exploring the cavernous proportions of Gondolin in its hidden valley. Though perhaps the mountains around that First Age city had crumbled at the sundering and completely covered the remains.

Aragorn straightened and watched his shadow glide lazily along on the sea. He leant on the railing again, clasping his hands lightly, and closed his eyes. Whatever he was passing over below, he recognized with certainty, he could not lightly pass off the responsibility of his heritage.

The tight knot that had held fast in the six months he'd been gone from Rivendell loosened, the first thread picked free. Whatever path he chose, he knew again, without a doubt, the inhabitants of Rivendell would have his back. Under those circumstances, he knew himself capable of whatever was required of him.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_Working Title: Self-discovery - Chapter 2_

_Summary: Day 7 (Belegost) – overcoming prejudice; Day 8 (Dorthonion) – identification with, or connection to, one's land, country, or culture; Day 9 (Nargothrond) – a character deciding between loyalty and betrayal; Day 10 (Gondolin) – use the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" as a theme or title. _

_A/N: A reader may have to stretch to *see* the challenge responses in this section of the story, particularly the connection to land, country, or culture, but it will be more explicitly realized later in the story through Aragorn. In a vague, rather impressionistic way, I used the ship's captain for all the prompts for 7, 8, 9 & 10. Unbeta'd so all grammatical, spelling and time line errors are mine._

_Warnings: If you dislike multiple POVs, do not read further as the POV switches casually here, back and forth between Aragorn and Borlath, the ship's captain. _

"It seems you spend all your free time here, staring at the water. What is it your eyes see, young one?"

Aragorn glanced over briefly as the man joined him at the rail, unsure if the light tone conveyed mocking sport or honest question. It was true, if he was awake and not climbing the rigging, manning ropes or learning the subtleties of the great wheel that steered the ship, he could be found in his favorite place here in the bow.

"Water," he stated, imbuing the response with as much dismissal as he dared.

He was slightly wary of the ship's captain, though he had judged him as honorable a man as to be found in Lindon. And Aragorn had spent much of his spare time in the port city frequenting the dockside taverns, watching and listening, before he had approached Borlath with his proposal.

To voyage beyond the known territories, one needed a captain with more than experience and so he had gone looking for courage and tenacity, expecting, rather naively he had had soon realized, to recognize them easily among the swashbuckling mercenaries populating the waterfront.

"You have learned young to keep you own council," Borlath remarked, arcing a long stream of weed juice out into the water from between his stained teeth. "What has made you so cautious, I wonder?" Turning, he rested his elbows behind him on the railing at which Aragorn leaned, the better to observe the visage that had not yet learned to school itself to impassivity.

Aragorn fought down the urge to wince. The man's tone was friendly enough, but he sensed beneath it, a measuring, and wondered if he had been found wanting.

The long nights of tavern crawling had provided plenty of fodder for an active imagination. Tales of leviathans large enough to swallow whole ships, fish with female head and chest along with finned tails for feet, spouting water sometimes funneling down from the sky, sometimes spiraling up from the sea, fish as big as boats, shipwrecks. And passengers whose gold had bought passage only to a watery grave. Those latter stories he had heard in the taverns only the locals knew about, the ones tucked away discreetly in the back alleys and stews of the waterfront. He had the gift of stillness and the ability to fade into the background as though no more than a piece of furniture and had learned a lot in that manner, not only about the places he wished to visit, but also - among the crews that plied their trade out of Lindon harbor - who would be the most likely to accept his gold and _not _take his life.

Aragorn had been quite pleased with himself that he had thought to negotiate half his passage as crew, with half the remaining cost paid up front, the balance to be paid upon arrival back on the continent. He had not thought the gleam in the captain's eye, avarice, but five days at sea with no land in sight, nor any talk of land among the crew had him a little spooked.

"I have seen the maps, I have an approximate idea of how long it should have taken us to reach Tol Morwen." He broke his silence at last, a little relieved to find he could utter the words without a quaver in his voice. He rather doubted this man would quail at the thought of justice delivered at the hands of his foster brothers.

Borlath threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Have you now?" He slapped Aragorn on the back genially. "Well then, Master Mariner, how long should it have taken us?"

There was no mistaking the humorously mocking tone this time.

"Five days." Aragorn turned his head, relived to find the blue eyes watching him were smiling, the mobile mouth twitching back a matching expression. "Yet my eyes behold only water."

"And were those maps any older than you, m'lord?"

"Aye, the maps were older than I." It seemed like everything and everyone he encountered lately was older than he. "And I am no lord, as you well know, Borlath." Aragorn imparted stiffly, slanting a mild glare at the captain.

"So you say," Borlath agreed pleasantly, keen eyes fixed on the slight blush that tinted high cheekbones already well-tanned. "So you say." The flush deepened and the boy cut his gaze back to the water rather than endure the inquisitive stare. "Well then, I will attempt to assuage your fears. I have no intention of allowing the crew to toss you overboard and steal your dragon hoard of gold. You intrigue me." Borlath turned and rested his elbows on the railing alongside the very young pilgrim who had hired his ship. He had watched the boy work his fingers to the bone in order to earn his passage, yet the clothing he wore was well-cut, if filthy, his bearing that of a young noble, his manner quite self-assured when he wasn't worried he was going to be thrown to the sharks. "Last night while you slept the sleep of the righteous—" There went that thought-provoking blush again. "We were becalmed. Else we would be lying off the leeward side of Tol Morwen right now." He let the silence lie between them for a few minutes before asking, with a gentle solicitude his crew would have found extremely foreign to the man they knew, "Tell me you story, young master."

Aragorn hesitated, seeking an answer that would satisfy without revealing anything. He did not know his face had already spoken volumes. "I am too young to have a story, Master Borlath," he responded eventually, flicking his fingers as if dismissing the thought that he was even worthy of a story.

"Everyone has a story." Silence came easily to the ship captain and he had learned to use it effectively. When no further response was forthcoming, he added thoughtfully, "I believe I can deduce much of yours."

"I'm sure you can," Aragorn replied lightly, the arrogance of youth making him bold in his own mocking assertion. "Young man, defying authority to find his place in the world, drifting. I'm sure you've ferried many like me, Captain."

"Nay. I have not."

Aragorn tensed at the flat denial.

"I expect you've been warned to keep your origins well hidden. But there is a destiny writ upon you, visible to the discerning eye."

"You will get no ransom from my family," Aragorn asserted aggressively. "I would not tell you anyway, who they are."

When the booming laugh had finally died away to chuckles, Borlath turned a smile upon his companion. "Ah, but you have already told me." He watched the grey eyes widen in alarm as the quick mind flew over all that had passed between them.

"I have told you nothing."

But there was, again, a distance in the stance, a slight pulling away, though the young man remained where he was, leaning against the rail.

"Shall I tell you, then, Master Dúranu, what you have told me about yourself?" Borlath did not wait for an answer. He was well aware the youngster was torn between fleeing to his cabin and desire to understand how he'd given away anything. "You were raised by elves though you are mortal. Am I right?"

"Why would you think that?" Aragorn asked curiously, neither confirming or denying what he considered a stab in the dark.

"Ah, but you told me long before we took ship, and have confirmed it over and over as I have watched you work among the men. You wear the clothing of a mortal man, but it is made from elven cloth; your mannerisms, your speech, your hair, even the way you move, is elven. It is not affectation, rather it is as natural to you as breathing." Borlath paused before appending. "Shall I go on?"

Perhaps it was obvious he had lived among elves, Aragorn relfected. He was dressed much like his Dúnedain relatives, a parting gift from his mother, but the cloth of his clothing had been woven on elven looms. It had never occurred to him to exchange his clothes in Fornost. And it was true, he wore his hair long in the elven style, pulled back in a queue like his brothers. Neither had he considered that his elven upbringing might have auditory and visual repercussions. To his ear, his Common had been no different from the speech of the Lindoners. And who ever pondered the way they moved? That last allelgation, he suspected, might have a lot to do with having Glorfindel as a sword master.

Borlath took it as a challenge. "Since you do not deny you were raised by elves, there a few places in Middle-earth left to choose from. You are not from Mirkwood, I have had dealings with their king. He has had trouble bringing up his own spawn, he would not willingly take on another's, much less one of mortal get. So, Lothlorien or Rivendell. The child of Galadriel and Celeborn is long removed from this earth and I do not see the lady as the motherly type. Which leaves Elrond of Rivendell, who has long been known to foster the sons of his brother's line."

"Conjecture built upon myths and faery tales," Aragorn postulated airily, praying his voice would not break with the sudden overwhelming sense of fear pressing down on him like a smothering blanket. The memory was sensory and triggered a rush of adrenalin that made his heart pound sickeningly. He had only just learned of that long ride as a two-year-old, from the Dúnedain settlement to Rivendell, a few months ago. Though he had no physical recall of the event, it had left an indelible mark. He had woken in a cold sweat his first night out of Rivendell, from the same nightmare that had plagued him as child – a body swathed in blankets, the shaft of a broken arrow protruding from the outline of the head. By the time he had had the verbal skills to describe the dream, he had been too frightened to give voice to the images, imagining them as portents of his own adult life that if spoken aloud, would come true.

A hand closed over his shoulder, grasping firmly, anchoring him again in the sunlight. "You should know, Master Shadow," Borlath translated the elven name Dúranu into Common, "that the eyes are the most telling. Only the great Númenóreans had eyes the color of the silvering seas at dusk."

"Who are you?" Aragorn managed to contain the physical shudder that wanted to run through his body. "By all appearances you are an Easterling, though why you ply your trade from Lindon rather than Umbar, I cannot decide."

"Do you wish me to understand I am not the only one who may play at guessing games?" Borlath laughed again.

The sound was beginning to grate in Aragorn's ears. "I was under the impression the Haradrim avoided contact with the men of the west unless joined in battle."

"Aye, they do, for the most part. And you are correct in your perceptions. You have a good head on your shoulders. I am an Easterling, as you name us, though by design rather than birth and perhaps that has informed such prejudices as I have."

Aragorn silently observed that the sea captain appeared to be a very learned man with his style of speech and his apparently broad knowledge of the First Age, not to mention what sounded like personal knowledge of Aragorn's forbearers.

"Where do your prejudices lie?" he asked curiously.

Borlath appeared to consider the query seriously. "I will have no truck with arrogance or false hubris. Mind, there are prideful men who exhibit neither trait, there is a difference, but I do not tolerate the aforementioned."

"I see. Perhaps I am fortunate that experience expunges much of youth's arrogance. I suppose I was full of priggish presumption when I left my home."

"What makes you think you are not now?" Borlath inquired affably.

"I am on this ship," Aragorn riposted, "am I not?"

"That you are and I will go one further and tell you I do not see the insolence of youth in you. It is a credit to your upbringing that you appear to recognize your limitations and are willing to accept education where you find it. What – or whom - do you seek among the ruins of Tol Morwen?"

"I do not know," Aragorn replied simply. _"_I have no hunger to meet a dragon at the Stone of the Hapless." He shook his head to rid himself of the ingrained response to plied questions, as though he answered his tutor. And was surprised to find the fear had lifted; he felt – if not free, certainly freer. His foster father had drilled into him the importance of keeping his new identify secret, that there were those who sought his life yet and would not hesitate to harm him if they but thought he was of the line of Isildur. But the sharing of this burden both of secrecy and lament, had lightened its unaccustomed weight. "I suppose," he mused, "I am looking for the true parts of the old story."

"Have you decided which parts were a lie?" Borlath inquired, the quirking eyebrow clearly indicating to Aragorn what the ship's captain thought of his animadversion.

"No," he admitted. "I have not been able to separate lies from truth. And yes, I know that likely indicates only my perception of events."

"It is true then, that you were fostered by Lord Elrond in Rivendell."

"I was."

"And raised as a child of the House of Elrond from all appearances."

"Yes."

"Then it is true, too, that you are a descendent of his brother, Elros."

"I did not know this until recently."

"But no one ever told you that you were not."

"The point is," there was asperity in the youthful voice, "no one told me that I was either."

"Would it have mattered, as you were growing up, if you had known you were of the House of Elros? Would you have studied more? Less? Learned different habits? Grown into a different man? Become something other than the adult I am sure your foster father is proud to own his son?"

"I will never know, will I? I was not given that opportunity."

"Yet you were given the opportunity to grow up without thought of shadow, without knowing need, without grief, without want. Without fear as a constant companion." Borlath weighted his next words with a deep solemnity. "It was the best of times and the worst of times?" And then grinned. "No, it was the best of times. It is writ all over you as clearly as your destiny, heir of Isildur." He turned and held out his palm peremptorily. "Give me your hand."

Surprising even himself, Aragorn instinctively obeyed. He, who for the last six months had inexorably resisted any command, docilely lifted his hand.

Borlath took it and turned it palm up. "Did my Lord Elrond also teach you of the longevity of your natural house?" He glanced up from his scrutiny of the callused palm. "Did he?"

Aragorn opened and closed his mouth. There had been little discussion of the nature of his natural family, he had not stayed long enough for the subject to come up and his time with his mother had been short. He knew, of course, intellectually, of the famed longevity of the Northern Dúnedain; application of the lessons to himself, however, had not crossed his mind.

"Do you see this line? It is your lifeline. Do you see how it runs long and unbroken? That should ease your mind that I speak the truth, yes? When I assure you, again, I will not allow the crew to throw you overboard, no matter how poor your skill with the sails and ropes."

It was difficult not to respond to the flashing grin. Aragorn let his lips curve in a slight smile. "I had no thought of being thrown overboard."

The grin broadened so the entire mouthful of weed-stained teeth were on display. "You do not lie well, Dúnadan, but have no fear, all your secrets are safe with me."

As he had known it would, the subtle emphasis on the all further allayed the fight or flight response the boy's body had instinctively activated. Borlath felt the tension drain from his companion's stiff limbs and watched the tightly clenched fists relax and curve over the railing again. He was not a kindly man, his benevolence extended only so far as boredom took it, but he had experienced an affinity with this young man that had not touched him for an age or more. They shared neither kith nor kin, yet the brightly flaming spirit of adventure calling to his own would not be denied.

"Come, I have maps as well, let us see how they compare with the ones you have seen."

Aragorn brightened. He had excelled at geography and loved maps. Among the ones he had tucked away in his belongings were copies he had made of Elrond's father's maps, along with many of his own of Rivendell and its surrounds. Of the few compliments he had wrested from Elrond's chief advisor, the ones regarding his map-making skills had been among the most prized. In this alone he had surpassed all the elves of Rivendell. It did not require a far-seeing eye, merely a keen one; neither feats of strength or valor, only patience and persistence and a talent for drawing. All of which had been within his reach.

"I will show you were we are and see if you can calculate how long, at our current rate of progress, it should take to reach our first destination."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Working Title: Self-discovery

Author: Tanis

A/N: I only managed to fit in Day 14/Armenelos (loosely) religious rites, and Day 17/Bree – gift exchange in this section. I have every intention of meeting all the challenges, 'cause I'm so enamored of my beautiful passport, so if I cannot meet all of them as the story progresses, in the story, I'll got back and pick them up individually. Because I want my passport to look like I'm well travelled in Middle-earth.

A subtly spicy aroma stung his nose pleasurably, stirring dormant desires deep in his soul as Aragorn stopped abruptly on the threshold of the captain's cabin. He could not have articulated what they were, only that something beyond the physical world beckoned enticingly; he followed it willingly further into the room.

"Come, come," Borlath boomed, his long strides measuring the illusory length of the room.

To Aragorn, it appeared much longer than the few steps required by the ship's captain to cross to the map table partitioning off this section of the room in which he stood. His quick eye noted strategically placed mirrors that elongated and stretched the proportions of the room.

A kaleidoscope of color whirled before his vision as his mind tried to register the exotic décor. Small, brightly-colored, tooled-leather footstools, shaped like mushrooms, dotted the multiple layers of thick carpet spread from wall to wall along the floor. Repeating the floor patterns, jewel-toned wall-hangings almost, but not quite, disappeared behind layers and layers of gauzy materials draped from the low ceiling in emerald green and royal purple interspersed with bismuth blues and dark pinks, all shot through with what appeared to be mithral and gold stripes.

A row of sea chests lined the wall underneath the enlarged porthole windows, some flat, others rounded on their tops, some decorated with metal studs, others painted with intricately repeating floral patterns. Leaf-shaped wall sconces hid glass-shielded candles at shoulder height between the portholes and in the middle of the sea of carpets, a low brass cut-work table, surrounded by the little mushrooms, perched by itself. And on the table sat a see-through blue glass bottle filled with water in which swirls of some substance hung suspended.

His eyebrows shot to his hairline. "A shisha_?" he exclaimed, looking to Borlath for confirmation. _

"_Aye," the man nodded, "Look at it if you like. Your education was even more far-ranging than I imagined."_

"_I have only seen a picture of one, drawn in the margin of a very old scroll. Its description and purpose fascinated me as a young boy." His attention completely absorbed by the glass vessel and attached flexible tubes, Aragorn missed the quirked eyebrow accompanying the twitch of the lips._

_Borlath, however, did not let the moment pass unnoticed. "And you are how old now?"_

"_Twenty," Aragorn murmured absently, fingers wandering over the carved-ivory mouthpieces at the end of the tubes. _

"_You are welcome to try it some evening."_

_That brought the dark head up and a grin blossomed. "Smoking, I am reliably informed, is a filthy habit."_

"_Spoken like a true elf." Borlath returned the grin. "Come," he motioned with his head toward the map table. "I think you will enjoy these as much as the narghile. Perhaps more." _

"_Say it again? I did not quite catch the inflection of your word for it." Aragorn left off his minute inspection to join Borlath at the map table. "Why – _perhaps more_?" he wanted to know, eyes widening again at the careless array of priceless maps spread over the table. Some had the mapmaker's seal, many of which he recognized as premier map makers from the First Age. _

"_I wonder if I was wrong to loose your tongue." Borlath drew a round, wooden cylinder out of a series of cubbyholes built underneath the table. "I suspect you were the bane of your unfortunate tutors." _

"_If a thing is worth knowing, it is worth knowing well," Aragorn quoted, loosing also, the last threads of resentment binding him to anger. He would have loved to show these to Erestor, who had a love of maps as well, especially old one. _

"_Do not lose your curiosity, young one. In my language it is called a narghile; westerners name is shisha. The smoke of the narghile is quite potent. It may induce chimeras and can leave you with a head sorer than if you had been imbibing spirits non-stop for days." _

_The sea captain unscrewed a plug at the end of the cylinder mounted with the carved head of horse whose flowing mane appeared so life-like, Aragorn's fingers itched to explore it. _

"_It would be wise to practice prudence in your experimenting," Borlath expounded as he tapped the open cylinder against his wide palm and pulled at the lip that appeared tightly rolled inside the canister. "While it helps some with sea-sickness, it has the opposite effect on others. You are a good sailor; I rather doubt you wish to experience the extreme. As to why you will enjoy these perhaps more – you be the judge." With care, he unrolled and spread the aged map, drawn on a parchment-thin hide, over top of the others._

"_I am well warned." Aragorn instantly bent over it. _

"_We'll see." Borlath rifled through the maps beneath and withdrew another, layering it over edge of the full-scale map of Númenor and another of First Age Middle-earth. _

_The third map was semi-transparent and Aragorn saw the Blue Mountains had been lined up over one another so ocean topography to the west and the land of the Third Age to the east lay atop the First Age renderings, every detail clearly visible through the pellucid overlay. _

_The captain set his left index finger on a miniscule dot on the overlay. "This is Tol Morwen. This," he spread his fingers and set his middle finger on a second, larger dot, "is Tol Fuin. Here is Himling." His hand steepled over his three fingers. "While the Númenor map is much larger scale, I have positioned it in about the area it is in relation to these three islands." _

_He saw the distance sink into that quick mind and lifted his fingers. "The voyage to Meneltarma is not to be undertaken lightly. It is a long journey and perilous." _

"_How do you know that?" Aragorn moved eagerly around the table. "No one in this Age has found the sacred mountain." He glanced up from the maps, grey eyes narrowed. "At least not since the second cataclysm."_

_Borlath merely smiled. _

"_Have you been there?" Aragorn demanded._

"_Did you not just state emphatically no one has been there since Númenor drowned in the Second Age?"_

"_I did not." Aragorn had played word games with the best of the best. "I said no one has found it in this Age."_

"_I have sailed that way often. The journey has become a rite of passage, though not precisely in the sense of faith or religion. The young make it for the adventure, the old because they wish to view the Blessed Realm in hopes legend speaks truly." With a look, Borlath closed the subject of any intimate knowledge of the island. "As you see, the distance is great. Depending on wind and tides, it could take as long as a year to make the round trip."_

"_I am in no hurry," Aragorn stated, tracing with his finger the lands over which they had sailed. The dwarven realm of Belegost, surely, though Nargothrond's cavernous halls lay further to the east than he had imagined while watching the sea go by. _

_The ship might even anchor over Dorthonion when they reached Tol Fuin. And they would surely pass over the realm of his foster father's long dead adversary and ally, the March of Maedhros. He wondered if there might be ruins still, of Maedhros fortress on Himring, to be found on Himling. _

_Borlath's chuckle drew the attention of his wandering fëa. "You have no pressing desire to lean of the realm you will inherit some day?"_

_Aragorn rolled his eyes. "A kingdom of surpassing worth." One part of his mind remained fixed upon the tally of places drowned now, lost forever beneath the Great Sea, that he would never be able to visit. "A scattered people, barely able to feed and clothe themselves, a city deteriorating in both its politics and policies, and if my father had the the right of it, vast mountain ranges inhabited by orcs and goblins and all manner of heinous creatures bent on extinguishing my life." _

_South and west of Tol Morwen would lie the famed island of Balar. His mother's most prized possession was a necklace fashioned out of dwarven gold, perhaps from Belegost, and strung with a single pearl the size of the end of his thumb. The provenience of the necklace was unknown, save that it had been passed down through many generations of his mother's family. The pearl was of such quality it could only have come from Balar, where, it was told in lore, the beaches had been strewn with the moon-wrought gifts of the sea. _

"_Maps can show you distances and help you orient where you are. They are not able to give you a feel for the land beneath your feet, they do not reveal the secrets the earth holds, nor tell you of the lives your people lead. They cannot teach you the smell of a place; they are no good with languages or customs," Borlath replied mildly, watching the finger hover over the Falls of Sirion. _

"_Nine miles of underground river." Aragorn sighed wistfully. "And falls my father says were stories and stories high. Does water transmute water? Do the falls still flow under water? He said the noise was so loud you could not make yourself heard in the ear of the person standing next to you." _

_Across the table Borlath had folded his arms over his chest and was watching him. _

"_So many things lost as a result of the arrogance of my ancestors. What truths must we uncover in this Age, in order to right the wrongs our forbearers have wrought upon the world? Or will we also chose poorly and bring down the wrath of the Valar?"_

_Silence filled the well of souls contained within the walls of the captain's quarters. _

_They have raised a philosopher, Borlath pondered, unsure if the augury bode well or not. _

_A shaft of sunlight breached the round porthole nearest the table, brilliantly illuminating the gilded writing on the maps both above and below. On the map of the star island, the capital city of Armenelos lit as if the gilt-painted letters had absorbed the sun's rays and were reflecting them back. _

_Aragorn stared at it, mesmerized._

"_That is a map meant to be explored." Unfolding his arms, Borlath searched among the maps until he found a cloth of chamois and passed it across the table. "Wipe your fingers before you touch it. It is very old and absorbs skin oils these days."_

_Aragorn, eyes still traveling the map of Númenor, took the cloth and absently scrubbed his fingertips. Laying it aside, he touched the gilt lettering over the capital city of Armenelos and found himself standing in the middle of a wide avenue, in front of a soaring circular building whose silver dome shone brightly under a mid-day Anor. Startled, he stepped back, losing contact with the map and the vision instantly dissipated._

"_Interesting," mumurmed Borlath, threading his fingers thoughtfully through the forked beard he affected. "Few it is have I known who could call forth the map's latencies. Did you recognize the temple of the Dark Lord?"_

_Aragorn blinked as if blinded by the sunlight flooding the cabin. "Dark Lord?" he parroted, taking a further step back from the table. His father had often told him there was no such thing as magic. That what men considered sorcery was merely an extension of the elves natural ability to manipulate the harmonies of the natural world in which they live. "What necromancy is at work here?" _

"_None. There is nothing amiss with the map. It is merely that the mapmaker imbued the artifact with his memories. The map only recognizes those whose fingers bear the genes of the maker himself. There is no evil in, I can assure you; you will come to no harm from handling it. See-" Borlath touched the map. "My fingers conjure nothing. It is yours if you like; it belongs with someone who can appreciate it for all its facets." _

_Aragorn thrust his hands behind his back, the naked desire on his face at odds with his shrinking posture. "That map is - is very – very valuable," he stuttered. "You cannot just give it away. And I cannot take it."_

"_Why not?"_

_Aragorn slid his gaze hungrily over the arms of the star island. _

"_You would not need to stand physically on the peak of Meneltarma if you spent time with the map. Why not see what else it shows?"_

"_I have only your word there is no evil in the thing."_

"_Would you recognize evil if you saw it?"_

_Aragorn lifted his gaze to the man across the table, though not his head. Youth was evident in his voice as he offered, "I think so. I have met evil when in the company of my brothers. I know its feel, the smell of it, the taste of it on your tongue."_

"_And did you feel any of those things when you touched the map?"_

"_Nay."_

"_Then test it again, with foreknowledge perhaps you will learn something different."_

_Hesitantly the young man stepped back up to the table. For a moment his fingers hovered over the fingers of the star, then drifted down to lightly touch the arm of Andustar. The aromatic fragrance of pine, fir and spruce rose around them as they stood under a canopy of beech and oak interlaced over the heads of the evergreens. The carpets beneath their feet were now pine needles rather than hand woven rugs._

_Borlath watched hesitant delight flit across the pensive features._

_Aragorn traced his fingers tenuously over the bay of Eldanna and felt himself flying as if on the back of one of Manwë's eagles, the water below the blue of Arwen's eyes, lightly frosted with drifting whitecaps. His eyes beheld the great tower of Meneldure Elentimo, heir to throne of Númenor and an avid star gazer. He saw the abode of the eagles and then dipped and landed, as his fingers walked up the map to Mittalmar, on a wide plain where his ears were assaulted by the thunder of galloping hooves and a herd of magnificent horses broke to either side of him as if he stood physically amongst them._

"_So must have stood the maker of the map," Borlath remarked patiently. "As you can see, the maker did not deign to sign his work, though it must have traveled with Elendil on the tide of the Númenor's drowning. Sense you evil any evil in it?"_

"_I do not," Aargorn admitted, though still troubled. "I cannot take it though; it is too valuable. I have nothing with which I may gift you in return."_

"_Gifts are not always meant to be reciprocated in kind. S'truth, young one, you are nigh unto impossible. You do not yet realize you are a gift in yourself." Borlath waved a deprecating hand. "Take it - or not - as you desire. It is of no import to me. I must return to the wheel." He turned abruptly away to wend his way through the palatial accouterments. "With luck and wind we will anchor off Tol Morwen before moonrise tonight. Stay as long as you like. There are many other maps that will provide information without startling that well-honed sense of self-preservation your adopted family has instilled."_

_The door banged shut behind the captain and Aragorn, thrilled to be left alone to explore the treasure trove Borlath had amassed, immediately fell to examining them inquisitively. _


	4. Chapter 4

Working Title: Self-discovery/4

Author: Tanis

Summary: Day 11 – Himring – sacrificing to achieve a goal. Day 15 - The Shire/sharing a meal. Day 18 – Wilderland – acts of kindness/generosity originating from a generous heart.

A/N: Many thanks to Ragnelle, who's canon catch (subsequently edited to fix it) in the first chapter of this story, allows for the unfolding at the end of this chapter. Further - sadly, intellectual research can only take you so far in trying to describe what it might be like to smoke hashish from a hookah. Imagination has supplied what cold, hard facts could not. Hopefully it will be howlingly hilarious if I have got it very wrong, for anyone who has experienced it, rather than dismally depressing. Insights welcomed with open arms.

Aragorn unhooked his boot heel from the bottom rung of the low stool he had found, reaching to massage a cramp in his leg as he stretched it out underneath the table. On his left, visible through a port hole, the luminous disc of red sun was sinking slowly into the sea, a maiden preparing to bathe in her evening chambers. He rose, stamped feeling back into a foot that had gone to sleep, and lifted a hand to massage the back of his neck too. He was stiff and cramped all over from having sat hunched over the maps for so long.

He had grown inured to the ship's bells chiming the hour, but judging by the position of the sun, he must have been sitting for a long time. Aragorn rocked forward on his toes and folded with the ease of youth, over his knees, stretching the tight muscles in back and shoulders.

He had not spent the entire afternoon on Númenor, though he had travelled throughout much of the lost kingdom. There were other maps as well: of The Shire, where Mr. Bilbo Baggins, the burglar Aragorn had met briefly years ago in Rivendell, had said he resided; and Bree, which he'd ridden through as he'd left home for Fornost; as well as Rhudaur and the Ettenmoors, all of which lay inside the borders of the old kingdom of Arnor. While none of those places had responded to his touch the way the map of Númenor had, they had still provided far more detail, particularly topographically, than the maps in the Imladris library.

In some strange way though, even the maps of Third Age Middle-earth had seemed to foment a different perspective.

He straightened, rolled his shoulders, and moved to lean against the hull by the nearest porthole. Much of the cabin was in deep shadow now, as the horizon hungrily swallowed the remaining sliver of Anor. At sea, he'd noticed twilight lingered long, as though the water captured and reflected the light of the days of bounteous sunshine. Their voyage had been blessed – or so Borlath claimed – five days at sea and nary a sight of cloud nor rain.

As he'd studied the map of Arnor and Gondor, old stories he'd learned by rote had blossomed with new understanding in his mind. Founded by the faithful Elendil and his sons, the Northern Kingdom, though it had split, had survived in some form for twenty-three generations. No mean feat while living in the shadow of Angmar. Fifteen generations of Dúnedain had succeeded the kings of the three kingdoms. He represented the sixteenth, he had been told.

His own afternoon's wanderings had augmented the knowledge he had stored with details that perhaps had always been there, but a shift in perspective had nuanced some different connotations. Isildur had been a charismatic leader of men; a man who, with his family, had remained faithful to the ways of the Valar under dire circumstances in the very teeth of the Dark Lord's pit, had kept alive the seed of Telperion in the White Tree, risking certain death to do so, and ultimately defeated the foul spawn by cutting the One Ring from Sauron's hand.

In elven lore, Isildur's moment of choice on Mt. Doom defined his entire life. One choice - and all the man's prior deeds were as nothing. He, too, Aragorn had realized, would be judged among the immortals by his choices; the scenario had fully engaged his sense of fair play.

He turned back to the table and began carefully stowing away the maps in the labeled storage cabinet, cataloging the visceral feel and texture of each one as his fingers rolled hides and parchment, smoothing furrows and rimples.

Behind him, he heard the cabin door open and glanced over his shoulder in time to see Borlath ducking to avoid the low lintel as he backed into the room. The man turned, revealing a loaded trencher balanced on one arm and a foaming pitcher extended from the other. "I thought to find you here still. There is flint and steel behind you, kindle some light else shortly we will be unable to see what we eat."

Aragorn glanced again at the faintly glowing horizon. "I did not hear the bell for the evening meal." He found the striking pair easily and lit the candles in their hurricane lanterns behind the graceful, leaf-shaped sconces.

"That is because it has not yet sounded." Borlath set the pitcher on the low brass table, followed by the platter. "Are you this fastidious when you are at home, Master _Dúranu_?" the captain interrogated as Aragorn slid the last map into its assigned space, leaving the top of the table clear.

"With things that do not belong to me – aye, I treat them with the respect they deserve." Three long strides and he was pulling out one of the funny little purple mushrooms, trying to gracefully dispose his long legs in the short space. Astride, his knees nearly touched the floor, but the table was too low to get under it and he found it very uncomfortable.

"Spread your knees and cross your ankles," Borlath advised, pushing a plate of food across the table.

That worked when he mimicked his host, leaning a forearm on the table. Aragorn dug in with gusto, all healthy young appetite.

The meat was much spicier than his palette was accustomed to, the textures of the accompanying strange side dishes very different, but the fare was neither boring nor inedible, and as he had never acquired epicurean tastes, he cared little what he ate. Though he tended to avoid anything with open, sightless eyes and it seemed, since boarding the ship, every meal had included something staring at him.

"You do not like our ale?" Borlath observed in response to the mild look of distaste the youngster displayed as he cautiously sipped at the beverage.

Aragorn shrugged. "I'm told it's an acquired taste. I have not yet acquired it." He glanced across at his meal companion. "Is the ship provisioned for a year's journey?"

"Nay, she is not large enough to accommodate those kinds of stores." Borlath cleaned his plate with a piece of flat bread and dipped it in the hot, spicy coulis the young one was avoiding like the plague.

"Then we would have to make stops…" Aragorn trailed off.

"Aye, we would." The ship captain drained his mug of ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his fist. "This troubles you?"

"No. I saw many islands on the maps, but - they are inhabited?"

"We do not need humans to restock larder or essentials such as water. We have rope and sail cloth to mend as needed, and timber is readily available on most of the islands. This far north, they tend be forested rather than tropical, though some straddle warm currents and are mostly beach. All have fresh water." Borlath pushed his plate away and picked up the tankard of ale before him. "The map did not satisfy your curiosity?"

A slight hesitation preceded a pensive sigh. "Somewhat. It is not the same as standing on the ground, as you noted earlier."

"Hoist by my own petard?" Borlath's lip's twitched beneath the dark mustache. "Númenor is not the kingdom you inherit."

Aragorn pushed his own cleared plate forward and crossed his arms on the table. "The terms of our contract are to make for Meneltarma, yet I sense you attempt to steer me from that course. Why?"

Borlath studied the earnest, open young face, wondering what experiences would stamp their mark indelibly upon it. "Had I thought to inquire more closely into your heritage, I would never have agreed to our bargain."

The shoulders tensed, sinking the bowed neck between them. "That makes no difference."

"You know that is not true," the captain murmured. "I cannot risk your life on a …" he stopped abruptly, matched the youngster's ruminative sigh and changed tack. "I will tell you plainly, again, the trip is dangerous. You are a king in exile, my lord, your people need you. In your old age, perhaps you will remember this as the first in the long line of personal sacrifices required to mount a throne."

"And if I do not wish to mount a throne?"

"I would tell you from experience, the best leaders do not, but they are ruled by more than their own desires. Many are born to the role and must assume its mantle when they are barely out of the cradle. Consider – you have had the gift of freedom for twenty years."

"Is the tame bird free, though it lives not in a cage?"

"Were you collected and returned to your hidden valley when you tested your wings?" Borlath retorted.

Aragorn slid his hands around the bottom of his tankard, circling it aimlessly over the tabletop. "It seems I am to be returned will-you-nil-you to your perception of preservation."

The sting of the omission of oath-breaking was not lessened by the diplomacy of the accusation.

"Aye," the captain acknowledged the direct hit with a slight bow from the waist, "I would break my oath to see you safely returned."

"Thus the map?"

"If you imply it was in the nature of a bribe, I will admit to no such trickery. There is no guilt in attempting to influence your thinking as determines your set course; neither will I bear the entire burden for gainsaying your desires."

"I was never dishonest with you, Master Borlath."

"Truth has many shadings, does it not? I believe you did not attempt to deceive me; however, you withheld information that would have altered my decision had I known." Borlath reached across the table to still the circling tankard. "Look at me."

Aragorn raised his eyes, his face painstakingly set in blank lines.

_He learns quickly, _Borlath observed silently. "In my place, what choice would you make?"

The lean jaw hardened briefly as teeth clenched. "I suppose with the wisdom of ages, I too would make a similar choice," he ground out. "But I have neither age nor wisdom to shield me from yet another disappointment." Aragorn shoved the little mushroom back with barely checked temper. "Thank you for sharing the maps and the hospitality of dinner in your quarters. Mayhap I should thank you too for your generosity in not immediately turning back on uncovering what I had been explicitly enjoined to keep hidden." He rose, hovering for a moment, leashed temper simmering in the grey eyes that stared down at the ship's captain. "Why did you not?"

Borlath reached casually for the shisha. "There is no inherent danger in these waters. We might meet an occasional squall or water spout, nothing my crew is not fully conversant with. I have no fear disaster will strike so long as we are prudent." He leaned to a trunk that turned out to be fitted with many little draws and withdrew a small packet and another set of flint and steel.

Across the top of the trunk, Aragorn's eye perceived a line of linked oliphants carved of flawless jade, the trunks of the ones behind, attached to the tail of the one before. His mind was busily engaged storing the knowledge unfolding before him.

The blue glass container was an elongated shape that bellied out in unevenly spaced, symmetrically smaller curves as they rose, topped with a metal stem that ended in a chamber of sorts, into which Borlath placed the contents of the packet, covering it with a perforated metal screen. The screen soon housed small bits of ashy charcoal.

"This you are welcome to consider in the nature of a bribe. If you will be seated again, we may proceed to enhance your education with pleasures of both the body and the mind."

Telltale emotions flashed like lightening across the revealing countenance unable to maintain the blank façade.

Borlath allowed the self-disgust, disappointment and dismay to go unremarked. He could be generous when it suited him and in this instance it would not do to grind away _all_ that defiance. Deftly, he kindled the coals in the metal screen and blew gently to encourage the small flames.

"Do not confuse anger with pain," he said, as the charcoal began to glow cherry red. "Nor betrayal with prudence. Now - sit, if you will, or go, but do not stand glowering at me as though I were the enemy." Reaching for one of the mouthpieces, he drew gently to initiate the process and closed his eyes.

Inquisitiveness won over temper, allowing no other course of action. "Fickle faculties, Estel," Aragorn mumbled, maneuvering the mushroom back into place in order to plant himself atop it again.

Borlath allowed that to pass as well, though his sharp ears caught the unlooked for name. Hope would not be destroyed under his watch.

Now that he had been offered the opportunity to try the shisha, perversely, Aragorn could not make up his mind to do so. He well knew his father would not be happy about this experiment, though in the week he had spent in the Dúnedain settlement, he had seen many of the men smoking pipes. The smell had been pleasantly earthy and aromatic, if less exotic than the mingling smells of the captain's cabin. Which, he now realized, carried an undertone of the smell of the shisha.

Tentatively he fingered the end of the tube nearest to hand.

"Taste this as you would taste a woman, slowly and with patience. Sip rather than gulp; the pleasure, like intimacy, is meant to build to a peak," Borlath instructed lazily. "The first few times, you will want to release the smoke rather than swallow it." He demonstrated, taking a shallow breath and opening his mouth to let the smoke escape. "When you have mastered that, try holding the smoke in your mouth for a time. The more your body absorbs, the more intense the pleasure."

Aragorn lifted the mouthpiece to his lips. It was cool and the taste of it tingled on his tongue, until he cautiously drew in a cursory breath. It was warm and fragrant in his mouth and tasted slightly minty. As instructed, he pursed his lips and blew the smoke out rather than inhale.

Across the table, Borlath watched with half-lidded eyes. "Relax. Allow your mind to wander as it will without guard or restraint. So far you have seen only the disadvantages of kingship. Wander, if you will, along the less traveled path. Seek the ascendant side as assiduously as you have sought to know the deprivations you will face."

The combination of lulling voice and creeping lassitude stole the will to challenge the directive. Aragorn rolled smoke around in his mouth and released the restraints he had clamped over the desire that had risen as swiftly as the Bruinen in spring. A vision of the Evening Star exploded like cascading fireworks in his mind's eye. Images swirled, tumbled away, meshed and tore apart, wove new scenes that slowed and moved with stately elegance across his inner vision. He was unable to focus on any one piece, but the sense of disparity and opposition was dispelled by an atmosphere of radiating peace, a feeling of well-being that refused impingement.

A part of his rational mind warned against illusory grace imparted under the influence of a soporific, but he ignored it and sat back to let the journey take him where it would.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Working Title – Self-discovery/5 - REPOST - With further shame-faced apologies. There were two working copies of this chapter and I managed to pick up my draft document, instead of the finished, corrected product and didn't realize it until Ziggy - thank you, my precious! - pointed it out this morning. I love 's easy posting procoess, but it's so easy, I've been lulled into false complacency and never remember to check and make sure I'm posting the right parts.

Summary: Day 12 – Falls of Siron/different races relating to nature; Day 13 – Balar/ unanswered prayers; Day 21 – Mirkwood/use of East & West

"Up, lazybones. While you slept we anchored off Tol Morwen. If you wish to see it, awake! Greet the sun!"

"Go away. I no longer wish to see Tol Morwen," Aragorn mumbled, burrowing deeper into the warm nest of his substance-induced dreams. Shrugging off the hand shaking his shoulder, he rolled toward the back of the bunk, thunking his skull against the bulkhead. "Ow! I have just gone to sleep, it cannot be time to get up."

The overloud voice in the confined space shouted cheerfully, "Oh, but it is! Come, Master Shadow, the day is wasting away whilest you wrap yourself in dreams. Up, up!"

"Irmo Lórien," Aragorn groaned, pulling the blanket _and_ the pillow over his head, "save me from this madman. Or leastways safeguard my dreams that I may find the paths again when next I lay down my head."

"A prayer destined to go unanswered," Borlath snorted, banging open a porthole. "Trust me in this, the Valar are too engaged in minding their own business to indulge such whims."

A fresh breeze wafted through the small, stuffy cabin, bearing on it the redolent combination of beach sand, damp earth, wet grass and forest.

Under the blanket, Aragorn shoved his fists into his eye sockets and curled into a tight ball. His head pounded as if Aulë worked his forge on the deck above. His mouth tasted like a flock of crebain had roosted there for the night and, he discovered, he was ravenous. The last, he decided, was reason enough to rouse himself to wakefulness.

Before he could force his recumbent body into a sitting position, however, the blanket was snatched away and he was hauled up by the back of his shirt.

"The crew has threatened to throw you overboard if I do not see to it that you wash. This particular bit of rebellion will end today."

His feet hit the floor with a jarring thud and Aragorn folded over his knees, grabbing his head with a groan.

Admittedly, he had purposely left off many of the habits he had been taught practically from infancy. He had actively coarsened his speech and his person, chosen to live in filth and squalor, tried hard to shut down conscience and morality, and generally repudiated anything to do with his life growing up. Ignoring personal grooming, a requisite conformity among the elven enclave, had been easier than some of the others.

To say truth, he was quite tired of this little rebellion himself, had been since before he had boarded ship in Lindon. But it had seemed like every time he had tried to shuck his clothes to wash either himself or his garments, a female of the house had been in dire need of … something. With no locks and no furniture to bar the door, he had finally given up. The itching had faded after a few weeks and he had consciously avoided looking into any reflective surface.

The pounding in his head notched up a level as he staggered to his feet in an attempt to reach the wash basin and at least splash water on his face. Long fingers curled around his upper arm, steadying him.

Borlath shook his head. "I did suggest you stop considerably earlier than you chose to."

Aragorn turned his head to squint at the captain. "You did," he agreed, baring his teeth in a semblance of a grin. "I would suffer a hundred times worse to relive last night's – or – this morning's," he amended, "dreams." Strangely, somewhere beneath the incessant hammering, a euphoric sense of well-being overrode all physical complaints. He sat down abruptly anyway.

"Eat - it may steady both your head and your stomach."

A small plate of sugared dates was thrust into his hands and Aragorn instantly gagged.

"Ai – more unanswered prayers," Borlath opined, having hoped to avoid this very thing. Snatching up the youngster, he half-carried, half-dragged him out of the cabin, up the companionway and deliberately _across_ the main deck to the starboard side. Away from where the long boat was already in the water awaiting passengers. "May Ulmo forgive me for curdling his seas. Harwan, water – and a rag."

Aragorn _felt_ like a rag by the time his stomach settled enough to allow him to loosen his grip on the low railing. He sank to his knees, too shaky to trust them to hold him up and felt someone gather up the hair that had come loose from his queue, pulling it back from his face. The boots at eye level were not the knee-high, cuffed boots Borlath wore. The called for rag was thrust into his hands and Aragorn risked moving his head far enough to acknowledge whoever was tending his hair.

"My thanks," he rasped hoarsely, tentatively lifting a hand to hold it back himself.

The sailor's white grin was genial, though Aragorn was too insensate to be able to translate the rapid fire delivery of the speech directed at him. He wondered briefly why he'd chosen a ship crewed by individuals who spoke none of the many languages he knew – forgetting in the moment that he'd purposely done so in an effort to thwart the news making its way back to his foster father before he had set sail.

"Harwan says it is not unusual for this to happen your first time smoking the shisha. Few have the iron stomach, he says, to tolerate the power of the opiate." Borlath lowered himself carefully to his heels beside the pale-faced young man, offering a dry biscuit. "Usually this hits catechumen earlier in the experience. I did not look for it with you, since you _did_ seem to tolerate it so well last night."

He glanced up at the sailor still standing behind the youth as Harwan rattled off another gurgling speech, chuckling throughout.

"I suspect he would not appreciate a translation of that," Borlath chided good-naturedly, in his own tongue. "You are likely correct, my friend; his body is still virgin territory, unaccustomed to our ways. And, aye, I will smoke less and supervise more, _if_ there is a next time."

"You said I would grow used to it," Aragorn challenged, translating enough to catch the gist of the humorous exchange. While he could not capture his dreams in memory, the insubstantial wisps curling through his mind still, were infinitely pleasing. "I would suffer far worse than this."

"You found the kingship not so onerous with the lady by your side, eh? Eat the biscuit." Borlath unfurled himself to rise. "Unless you are Túrin-cursed, it will give your stomach something other than itself to digest. Sit."

The command was easily enforced as Aragorn was swaying on his knees and the hand on his shoulder guided him back and down on his rump so he was leaning against the railing he'd just been leaning over. He drew in a deep breath, let go of his hair and leaned his head back carefully as well.

"Come Harwan, I expect he will feel better without an audience."

Two pairs of footsteps receded and Aragorn was alone with the sun steadily warming the extremities that had gone cold as all the blood had rushed to augment critical organs. He concentrated on controlling his racing heartbeat…slowing his respiration…filling his lungs completely…and trying to recapture the essence of the dreams where he had walked with the one he loved beneath the great mallorn trees of Lothlórien.

His gift of healing had been enhanced by his studies with Elrond, but he did not yet have enough control to exercise it on his own behalf. And practicing here, under these conditions, was out of the question. So he sat and nibbled carefully at the biscuit until he was sure it would not immediately reappear, waiting for that underlying sense of well-being to seep back after its temporary displacement.

Because he was young and healthy and fit, his body threw off the effects of over-indulgence relatively quickly. While he did not exactly swarm down the netting with the crew heading for shore, he did make it down into the long boat on his own, and by the time the sailors were shipping oars as they beached the craft, he was one of the first ones out to help drag it up beyond the high tide mark.

Borlath stepped out of the boat onto dry ground. "With your interest in maps, I must assume you know the cardinal points and can orient yourself by the sun?"

Aragorn nodded.

"Good. Come then, I will show you the best place to bathe and then you may explore on your own, if you wish, or if you prefer, I will assign one of the crew to accompany you. The island is hardly large enough to become lost, you have only to head down hill and you will eventually reach the beach."

"I have been finding my way around on my own for many years; I do not need a chaperon." Inside the borders of Rivendell to be sure, but the valley was likely larger than the island, though the deceptive distance of the ship from shore had obviously diminished the relative perspective.

"It was an offer only," Borlath said mildly. "You are a prickly one are you not." He did not inflect it as a question, nor wait to be answered.

The captain turned and headed up the beach toward the verge of the pine forest sloping tamely upward to the summit rising no more than a mile or two above the beach. At that rate, its circumference could be no greater than a day's walk, perhaps far less.

Aragorn instinctively fielded a feathery branch that slapped back in the wake of Borlath's passing, following more with his feet than his mind as he visualized yesterday's maps again. The ship was anchored on the lee side of the island, prepared to sail further east, on to Himling and Tol Fuin, which meant they were moving steadily west as the slope of the hill was very gradual and it appeared they were moving sideways rather than straight up.

The forest was ancient, the undergrowth dense and gloomy where the sun did not penetrate. Scrambling over a boulder taller than he was, planted deep amongst the beeches and oaks that had grown up around it, Aragorn was reminded that this was an island because ages ago, the earth itself had been rent from its foundations by Morgoth's treachery. Yavanna's lovingly nurtured gifts had suffered ravishment, yet even in death they had reseeded much of the land, growing up again around the protruding bones of the earth.

It was a wild beauty, untamed by any human hand, yet clothed with an almost decadent richness. This far north on the continent, autumn was tinting leaves and withering the stumps of harvested crops. Here, the shades of green were innumerable and clumps of wild flowers in rioting colors reached for the sun in every open space. Bright yellow trefoil, purple thistle and catmint, red woundwort, white clover, pink marjoram, blue bindweed all growing cheek by jowl, spilling over rocks, fountaining from unexpected crannies, sprouting in the cracks of boulders where eons of rich earth had accumulated, blossoming everywhere a tentative foothold could be gained.

Rivendell, for all its famed beauty, seemed tame in comparison. Here chaos reigned supreme, but it was a chaos that majestically encompassed nature's bounty. Aragorn looked upon it with a keen eye and a heart pierced deep by the loveliness.

He was glad for Borlath's silence, preferring his own ruminations to conversing. The Easterling walked with his head down, apparently equally lost in his own cogitations, as his boots trod heedless upon boulder and flower alike. Perchance the man came so frequently the island's charming vistas were no longer appreciated.

Aragorn turned his thoughts again. Glancing around, he wondered if perhaps the shallow vale they hiked might have once coursed with the waters of the River Tieglin. Which reminded him that somewhere nearby, long ago on this remnant of First Age land, the mighty Túrin had slain Glaurang, the father of all dragons.

As a small boy, Aragorn had begged for dragon stories at every opportunity, cherishing a not-so-secret desire for a dragon of his very own. He'd been absolutely certain, aided and abetted by his brother's cultivation, he could tame one if only he could find an egg. To that end, there had been many a woodland romp with the twins, seeking out aeries where dragons might nest, hunting for clutches of eggs. Until an eight-year-old Estel had misstepped and tumbled down into a deep defile too narrow for either Elladan or Elrohir to descend. Fortunately, they had carried rope and Estel had only sprained an ankle badly, but their father had put an end to the nest hunting with the simple expedient of telling the bed-bound youngster of the tragedy at Laketown and the death of the last dragon in Middle-earth.

But then his brother's had snuck an enormous iridescent blue egg into his room and bade him keep it under the blankets to see if would hatch. Which he had done faithfully for the duration of his convalescence. When the progeny had failed to come forth by the end of the eternal week-long recuperation, they had convinced him he should break open the egg to see if the baby dragon needed assistance getting out of its hard shell.

Being the best egg cracker in the house, Faeleth the cook had been summoned to preside over the ceremonial splintering. She had come bearing a large bowl, and lo and behold, with a two-handed whack against the edge of it, Estel had watched a little dragon slither from the broken egg.

Of course it had been an intricately carved and painted little dragon, but so life-like that for a moment, the boy had imagined it was real. He had named it Brégarod and it resided still, on the small table beside his bed. To this day hedid not know how they had contrived the appearance of the pristine egg, though age and experience suggested the iridescent paint had likely been the agent of conviction.

Aragorn swallowed the sudden surge of homesickness that swelled like the sea beneath the ship. And brought his mind back to cardinal points and paying attention to the way they were going. He slapped another branch aside and increased his pace, catching up to the ship captain who had forged ahead at speed while he had been daydreaming.

"Not far now," Borlath called back over his shoulder." Shortly he was ducking under the low hanging branches of a massive beech, Aragorn following in his wake.

They straightened on the inside edge of a verdant glen. A thick layer of feathery fern carpeted the forest floor, springing back as soon as their feet had passed as they approached the edge of the natural rock pool dominating the clearing. The translucent green water hinting at mineral springs.

"One of nature's bounteous gifts." Borlath made a sweeping hand gesture. "Your bath, my lord," he said with a bow, dark eyes twinkling. "Do not slip and drown yourself."

From the voluminous pocket of his coat, he drew a small canvas bag and handed it to Aragorn.

"To reach the standing stone raised in commemoration of Morwen Eledhwen, go straight up from here, at the top continue east and follow the crest of the hill until you come to it. If you go straight down the other side, the beach where we landed is half an hour's walk west again. The boat will return at sunset."

From the other pocket, he withdrew a mesh bag of dried meat, cheese, some more of the biscuits from the morning's meal and more of the dates that had caused the precipitous departure from the cabin earlier.

He turned to go even as Aragorn began shaping words of thanks. "Ai, it will take some scrubbing to get down to skin again, it will be interesting to see what you really look like under all that filth," he tossed over his shoulder, then stopped abruptly and turned back. "One other thing before I forget. The men will be hunting game today. Do not go slipping through the woods elflike, else you will be returning to the ship with piercings to rival an Easterling." The captain turned once more to go with one last word of advice. "Be sure to wash behind your ears."

"You _must_ know my father," Aragorn chose to enter into the spirit of the teasing rather than resent it. He tossed the grimy grey shirt he pulled off over his head into the bed of ferns and started on the buttons of his breeches.

"Nay," Borlath returned without slowing. "I have never met Lord Elrond or his sons, though I have met his daughter."

"What? Wait!" Torn between wanting to follow and demand further details and the waterfall burbling over the rocks behind him, Aragorn took a step forward, then halted as the captain's voice drifted back to him again.

"Lúthien took a mortal to husband, t'would not be the first joining of elf maid and man."

He heard snatches following of the _Lay of Lúthien_ until the booming voice faded into the distance and was gone.

Aragorn shook his head, stripped out of the rest his clothes and dumped the contents of the canvas bag into the grass beside the rock surround. A smallish, framed piece of highly polished tin, a leather razor strop, a lidded jar of soap, and a comb slid out.

Bracing himself, he lifted the mirror and met a stranger with a scraggly beard, a bird's nest of snarled and matted hair, and a darkly tanned face totally foreign to the one he had known in the mirror at home.

Here, truly, Estel met Aragorn for the first time.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Self-discovery/6

Day 16 – Arnor/ Start a story with _A gentle breeze brushed the hilltop, combing the ruins_…; Day 27 – Rohan/a character rises above themselves to follow a dream

_A gentle breeze brushed the hilltop, combing the ruins_, perhaps with the same curiosity as the human clambering among the tumbled rocks and overgrown vegetation.

Aragorn took out his newly whetted knife, slicing through prickly handfuls of vines and underbrush as he disrobed the gravestone of its trailing green gown. He had found two more, those of her children, the dragon-slayer and his tragic sister-wife, nearby.

Their story made Aragorn wince at his own rather petulant behavior.

Morwen Eledhwen, the most beautiful of all mortal women in the First Age had been wed at twenty-three, lost first a girl-child, then her husband to the pestilence of Morgoth and then her son in order to keep him safe from the Dark Lord's minions. Yet she had not bowed before the grief; she had wrapped her hopes and dreams around her children and willingly borne the cost of assuring their safety and security at risk to her own life.

Though she had not suffered privation and want as had Morwen, his own mother had sacrificed to secure his safety and security as well. While the child Estel had blossomed and flourished, Gilraen had faded, never quite accomplishing the transition that would have made her life in Rivendell something more than merely passable. She might have wed again if she had remained among her own people, made a new life, had other children. Instead, she had risen above the need to fulfill her own hopes and dreams and given her hope in service to her people.

Aragorn wished he had known that growing up. He might have behaved differently; been less impatient with her intransigence, been less intransigent himself, done more to make her life easier. He found a leafy patch of vegetation that would keep his newly clean clothes out of the dirt and sat down across from the stone.

His mother had been appalled when she had pried from him the sketchy details he had been willing to share regarding his twiliight meeting with the daughter of the house of Elrond. He knew her to have some measure of the foresight of her people and had seen through her calm façade, but when he had pressed her, she had said only that he aimed high and that Master Elrond would not lightly give the Evening Star into the keeping of a mortal.

He had felt the keen edge of her concern, though he had brushed it off with that youthful arrogance that had carried him so quickly from his home.

Aragorn twisted the twining serpent ring upon his finger again. For thousands of years it had passed from father to son in an unbroken line, an heirloom binding the house of Finrod to the house ofBëor – elf to man, immortal to mortal.

And yet, he had been told, both elf and mortal deemed his love unworthy. The Dúnedain were a diminished people, their historical contributions amounting to little more than the destruction of half the known world in their age. But if that were truly the case, why would anyone want to put the reins of government into his hands? Let alone the fate of the world.

The early morning headache that had mostly receded as he had bathed and washed his clothes, was gaining ground again. He had fallen asleep while waiting for his clothes to dry, but he had slept little the night before and felt his eyelids growing heavy again as he sat contemplating the stone of Morwen Eledhwen. Crossing his arms over his knees he lowered his forehead and closed his eyes, weary of his circling thoughts.

He could not remember ever being indecisive; from the time his own desires had begun to manifest, he had known what he wanted and pursued it with single-minded purpose. It was wearying to be so irresolute in his course of action. It seemed as though one moment he was prepared to take on the world if it meant a two-thousand-year-old elf maid could be won by kingly accouterments; the next it was an impossible dream, weighted down by a burden of power that would scoop out his brains as surely as a troll.

His personal inclination was to kidnap the maid and disappear, but there had been no indication that she was like-minded. And why should she be? She who could make her choice among the most beautiful of Arada's immortal inhabitants, choosing a mortal man?

He was not so smitten with himself as to believe he had more to offer than one of her own kind, though he had – in the moment – boasted of his kinship to her. Impossibility on top of improbability…his thoughts trailed off into dreams again.

Aragorn woke with a start, late in the afternoon, muddled and out of sorts that he had slept so long when he had fully intended to explore the island's peak. He had had the presence of mind to collect samples of the abundant flora for his father as he had wandered up the hill from the rock springs, knowing Elrond would be able to instantly discern the healing properties of a plant just by looking at it.

He would have to ask Borlath to borrow one of the heavy tomes he'd seen on a shelf in the captain's quarters to press the specimens. In drying they would lose some of their efficacy, though not enough to make it useless to preserve them to take home. And a peace offering might make his apologies more palatable.

He had no idea what to expect on his return, which weighed on him as well. There had been no outright rebellion in Imladris in thousands of years, if one discounted the twins mischief-making tendencies. But that really didn't count as their pranks were never harmful, and besides, they were full-blooded sons of the house, not a many-times-removed relative adopted for safe-keeping.

Thinking over the list of Rivendell inhabitants as he made his way as quickly as possible down through the undergrowth – careful to make a great deal of noise – Aragorn thought it probable there had never been outright rebellion in Rivendell. Compared to their other First Age relatives, the elves he knew were a quiet bunch, but then he supposed the three First Age Rivendell elves had seen enough rebellion to last an eternity.

There was little doubt in his mind that his return would be welcomed; he was just a little unsure of the kind of welcome he might receive. Especially if he returned with the intent to rouse rebellion in the heart of the much loved daughter as well.

He was half way down when he heard the shouts. They were looking for him from the sounds of it. He might not understand the language well yet, but he could distinguish the name he had given – Dúranu – and the urgency in the many voices calling for him.

Aragorn grabbed his knife and slashed his way through the undergrowth .

Amid the seething bustle on the beach, Borlath stood impassive, arms folded across his chest, eyes sweeping the hillside. "He comes! Load up and count heads," he shouted, hearing the crashing through the underbrush long before his passenger broke through onto the beachhead.

"Well well, from filthy elven princeling to Edain," the captain observed, turning as the youth caught up to him. "You clean up decently." Though he eyed the shorn hair askance. "Will you elf maiden approve?"

Aragorn spared him a glance, but wasted no breath on a response to the observations. "What's the hurry?" he asked breathlessly, lengthening his stride to keep pace with the man.

"There is a storm coming. Get in the boat and put all that fervid young strength to an oar, we may yet be too late."

"Storm?" Grey eyes arced from east to west. "There's not a cloud in the sky. How could you possibly know a storm is coming?"

"Observe the waves; they are twice the height of the morning waves. The tide is considerably higher than it should be now. Do you see any birds? Nay, they are gone to their nests. Get in the boat." Borlath stepped into the boat half-full boat, taking a seat at an oar himself and switched to the harshly accented language of the Easterlings. "Do we have everyone?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Then shove off."

Aragorn, despite his skepticism, put his back into an oar.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

_My apologies for the repost of chapter five; it wasn't until Ziggy pointed out it appeared I had posted a draft that I realized I'd picked up the wrong one when I posted it the first time. And many thanks to those who've taken time to leave feedback on the story; it's much appreciated. _

Aragorn retreated immediately to his place in the bow, out of the way, yet available for quick action if needed. He could not help but notice the captain's gaze turned as often to him as it did to the bank of black clouds, rent by sharp streaks of lightning, building on the horizon. Nor that they had yet to weigh anchor.

With a relatively large land mass on one side and a wicked storm brewing on the other, it seemed logical that they would run before the tempest rather than wait it out. The wind was already picking up, the waves that had seemed only nominally higher on shore rocking the ship significantly.

Aragorn turned as he heard the spyglass snap shut. He watched the captain speak a few quiet words to the first mate, then Hawan, as he gestured to the dripping cutter that had just been hauled up over the side.

Trepidation rose with each boot fall as the captain strode toward him. "No." Aragorn curled his fingers around the wood as if he could gainsay the decision by physicality alone.

Borlath crossed his arms over his chest. "Get your things together. Harwan is collecting provisions for the two you. He will take you back to the island where you will wait out this storm."

"I go where the ship goes."

"That is neither your choice, nor your decision to make. I will not risk your life when I know you will be perfectly safe on shore. We must sail into deeper waters away from land. If we founder, someone will come looking for you."

"No," Aragorn repeated harshly, though he knew from the set of the jaw any argument he put forth would be cut to ribbons. "I don't—"

"Half your passage was to crew for this ship," the captain's voice drilled through the beginning of Aragorn's incensed retort. "My sailors do as they are told, without question. Collect your things and get to the boat now." Borlath turned abruptly, shouting orders to set sails and be ready to weigh anchor at a moment's notice. "Every second we await your departure adds jeopardy to all our lives," he said over his shoulder. "I will not leave until I see you on the beach."

Of course he moved, and quickly. Aragorn had little doubt the captain's orders would be carried out with swift efficiency if he refused to leave the railing; one way or another he would find himself in the cutter. But neither was he so far gone in his rebellion as to be willing to risk other lives for the sake of his own stubborn willfulness.

It was the work of mere minutes to collect the broken sword and bedroll from his cabin. The boat was back in the water, boxes and barrels and crates being hurriedly lashed to and between the empty seats.

Borlath reappeared carrying a wooden casket, and under his arm, a sealed map container. "Should I fail to return, this must reach Gandalf the Grey." He handed over the chest; one Aragorn had noticed the evening before. It was small, not much larger than a trinket box, but intricately carved with diminutive fanciful beasts delicately painted: a pale horse bearing a silver spiraling horn in the middle of its forehead; some ancient scion of Thorondor, but with wings and head mounted on the body of a lion; a coiled sea creature, its amaranthine scales so life-like it appeared to writhe as the ship captain thrust the box into his hands.

"Elrond will know how to contact the wizard if need be. This belongs to you as well." Borlath thrust the map container at the younger man. "It is my expectation we will return within a day or two at the most; however, if we do not, I leave Harwan in your care. Land is not his proper element; he knows nothing but the sea. However, he likes you and will be a staunch ally and a good companion should it come to that."

"Borlath—"

"Every moment you delay is another moment we cannot weight anchor. Go!"

Aragorn went, shinnying down the rigging thrown over the side, to drop into the boat beside his new companion. Before he was settled, Harwan was pushing off the ship, reaching across him to lock down the oars.

The boat was too large to be easily handled by just two, but an amalgamation of wind and waves aided their passage so they were soon within landing distance of the beach they had left no more than two hours ago.

Aragorn, glancing over his shoulder, caught just a glimpse of sails billowing from the top mast, the rest of the ship blocked by a towering wave cresting behind them.

"Row!" he shouted, heaving on his oar with a desperation born of panic. Harwan, his head instinctively following the younger man's, threw his entire weight against his oar as Aragorn did the same.

The wave, furling in on itself, caught them just under the bow, and hurled the boat out of the water like a missile from a catapult. Time stretched linearly, every moment unfolding like the petals of a moon flower, visible in increments, measured in heartbeats.

Aragorn's elven-tutored mind stretched to assimilate each one. Knuckles white, fingers locked on the oar, booted toes straining against the underside of the seat in front of him, they flew like the sea birds he had watched over the moiling mountains of waves. At the speed and velocity they were traveling, the boat would beach all right - in a pile of splinters - but there was naught he could do. And then, as if caught in an invisible net, the flying craft hovered for a split second, just long enough to lose momentum, and dropped like a cumbrous boulder onto the rocky shoals.

Wood screeched as it splintered, the keel splitting down the middle like a sectioned orange. Harwan's paddle flew up with flailing hands, sending Aragorn sprawling over the side as the flat of the blade caught the side of his head.

He was scrambling to push off the slick rocks suddenly under his booted feet before his mind registered the explosion of nauseating pain sucking the air out of his lungs. He shot to the surface, coughing up sea water and grabbed for the splintered side of the boat as the sea behind drew back with the same power it had propelled them forward, the puissant undertow momentarily shifting the broken bits as though to drag what was left of the vessel back to its proper element. Only the weight of the hastily lashed down cargo kept the piece Aragorn clung to in place.

If he could just get some purchase long enough to lunge with the next incoming wave, it would likely deposit him on the sandy shore with little or no effort on his part, but that meant letting go, and he could not force his fingers to obey his commands. He could as easily be swept back out to sea as thrown up on the beach.

It occurred to him, rather belatedly, the last thing he had heard from his companion had been Harwan's shout of consternation as the wave had launched them airborne, flailing in free fall. Salt water stung his eyes as he forced them open, gingerly reaching his free hand to the right side of his face where the paddle had caught him. His fingers, when he drew them away, were for an instant covered in blood, but only for an instant before the next wave broke over his head.

Instinct unlocked the frozen fingers of his right hand as a shudder wracked the broken boat frame. He shoved off the moment the water receded enough that his boot toes touched the rocks, arcing to dive into and under the receding wave, struggling against the riptide current sucking the sand out from between the deeply embedded rocks. He had learned to swim in the freezing waters of the Bruinen and knew what it was to swim against a current, though not with clothes and boots weighing down his buoyancy; but it had been nothing like this. He could make no headway against the relentless draw of the tide.

He was not an elf and had not the capacity to hold his breath forever as it seemed his brothers were capable. But he dove for the bottom, wedged his fingers between a pair of rocks and held on until the ebb turned again, this time tossing him far enough forward that he could scrabble to his knees, then to his feet, and stagger to the shore. Where he dropped, winded, to hands and knees and crawled the last few feet onto dry sand, flopping face down, waiting for his heart to catch up with his body.

The water had not been particularly cold, and the bright, penetrating sun shone warmly on the tranquil beach. Behind him, the waves still slapped the shore and he could hear the shattered pieces of the boat and cargo groaning with each inhalation and exhalation of the sea.

Aragorn sat up abruptly, then pushed himself to his feet, swaying a moment before he began to weave down the beach in an alarmingly erratic manner, but at least his feet obeyed his brain's signal to move. He waded back into the swirling foam, grabbing the splintered prow of the boat that had, fortuitously, shifted higher on the rocks, and heaved with all his might.

The groaning issued from neither boat nor cargo, but the prone man draped like a curtain over the wooden seat.

Fear lent him strength, as did an incoming wave, and Aragorn stumbled backwards dragging half the boat, its unconscious passenger, and the remaining crates and barrels that had not already tumbled back into the ocean, further up the shore. He could not manage to get it clear to the beach, but far enough that it was beyond the immediate pull of the sucking tide.

Staggering around to the interior, he grabbed Harwan under the arms and hauled him further up the beach, well above the damp sand, quickly checked that he was breathing, clinically noted the broken arm and swelling over the left eye and careened back down to the boat.

Yanking his knife from his boot, he sawed through the soaked lashings and started rolling crates and barrels up the beach as well. They were large enough he could not lift them by himself, even at normal strength, and his head still buzzed as though a colony of angry bees had taken up residence. But he could tip them end over end, or roll them in the case of the barrels. He explored the cut still trickling blood into his right eye with his fingers on one of the trips back down to the boat, found it ripped skin rather than cut and worried about it no further.

The deep draft of the sundered cutter had anchored the left side of the boat, the side from which Aragorn had been summarily expelled, in deeper water, and though tentatively grounded, it was too far out to attempt to collect its remaining cargo. His pack, the map, and the little box had all been at his feet on his side of the boat. Even if they were still inside the damaged keel, he dared not try to retrieve them and turned with regret to toil back up the beach with the last barrel, upending it so its bulk cast a little shade on Harwan's face as he knelt beside the man. The broken sword, at least, was secure in its scabbard, strapped to his back.

The man's left forearm had snapped cleanly halfway between wrist and elbow. It was the work of a moment to realign the bones and call up enough healing force to fuse the break, but he had neither the energy, nor the skill, to complete the healing. He had seen Elrond knit broken bones, but even folk the master healed required splints and slings for several days.

Using the barrel, Aragorn levered himself to his feet and went to inspect the two crates he had managed to salvage. Choosing one at random, he wedged his knife into the slit around the upper edge and pried off the top. He glanced briefly at the contents – incongruously, it appeared to be dried, salted fish – and with rather more strength than he thought he possessed at the moment, slammed the lid against the side.

Once, twice; a third time without noticeable effect. The fourth time the wet wood splintered as the boat had and he ripped a couple of slats free to use as splints, returning to bind them to the broken arm with a length of fabric slashed from the hem of his shirt.

Harwan was staring at him when he glanced up, though no sound had escaped the man's tightly compressed lips.

"How many fingers?" Aragorn held up three.

The sailor closed his eyes.

"Harwan?" Urgency colored both cadence and tone as Aragorn gripped the man's shoulder. "Look at me," he commanded, searching frantically through the limited vocabulary he'd picked up from the men over the last week.

Thankfully, for he could conjure no words of translation, the coarse black lashes lifted in response to the demand in his voice. The pupils constricted immediately and in tandem and Aragorn breathed a sigh of relief.

"Can you sit up?" He mimed the motion of rising, pointing with his chin over his shoulder at the dark cloud banks harried by a menacing wind racing toward them. "The storm is coming fast. We need to get to shelter."

Harwan pulled up his knees, dug his elbows into the sand, and with Aragorn's help, levered himself upright. He paused only a moment before lurching to his feet, and swung about motioning for the younger man to precede him across the wide, smooth expanse of sand.

Aragorn shook his head, a mistake he thought immediately, but grabbed Harwan's arm and together, staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they trudged toward the tree line, the sky darkening broodingly behind them.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

_Will you indulge for a moment, gentle reader? :-) I would like to say thanks to all of you who've added this – or any story of mine – to your favorites list. It took awhile to figure out the system out here , so it was also awhile before I realized how important those lists are and how many readers actually come my way when someone adds something I've posted to their favorites list. So thank you to each of you who've done so. It's the best kind of PR an author can receive. - Tanis_

His brain registered only a blinding flash before the percussive blast knocked him to his knees. A few feet behind them a tree shattered into splinters, its rending death shriek barely audible over the immediate clap of thunder that shook the ground.

Aragorn staggered back to his feet, hauling Harwan up as well. "We must keep moving!" he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the howling of the wind.

The storm was full on them and it appeared the shelter of the trees might very well be their death rather than their salvation. No matter, to stand still was to die sooner.

They had crossed the beach as swiftly as their injuries and the deeply churned sand would allow, but watching over his shoulder, Aragorn had had the fanciful notion that the ever purpling sky, squeezing out the sunlight, had looked malignant. He had thought it only his imagination, but he felt it now - a malevolent seeking driving before it needles of rain born a on a wind that smelt of burnt sulfur and resinous pine.

Instinct closed down his mind, erased all traces of thought beyond survival, kept his feet, and sometimes hands and feet together, moving forward and up, scrabbling for footholds on the wet, slippery path.

Darkness had closed around them like a giant fist, a blackness so complete that between lightning flashes Aragorn could not see his hand in front of his face. Panting, he continued clawing his way up the hill.

Around them the forest, gloriously clad only this morning in its ancient beauty, was fighting for survival too. Through the uproar assaulting his ears, Aragorn still heard the majestic death songs, soaring arias of pain as trees sung into being and nurtured in infancy by Yavanna herself were uprooted and toppled by the malicious winds and lightning. He had lived too long among elves not to believe in the sentience and sacredness of all life. Each new lifted voice ripped at his fëa as the seeking claws of malevolence raked wildly at all living things, leaving in its wake a swathe of destruction.

A slimy coiling encircled his wrist and Aragorn, horror suborning fright, flung it off with all the wild strength of youth and racing adrenalin – before he realized it was Harwan grabbing at his arm.

Heart still in his throat he turned abruptly to glare at the sailor, lost his balance on the slippery slope, and dropped precipitously on his arse. Only Harwan's quick, blind grab stayed a long, ignominious slide back down the mountain and an even more difficult climb back up.

Aragorn picked himself up, found his balance again and shoved the thankfully short, rain-soaked hair away from his face. "What?" he demanded loudly and irritably.

If they lived through the afternoon it would be miraculous in the extreme. The danger aboard ship could have been no greater than their peril exposed here on the mountainside, at risk from a lethal combination of elements seemingly invoked by a virulent will.

Harwan's pointing arm was revealed with the next flare of lightning and the gelid fingers again braceleted Aragorn's wrist, this time pulling him off the trail and into the dripping underbrush.

Lightning dogged their heels like hounds on the hunt, spraying sparks and splinters with equal ferocity, but the ancillary effect at least pushed back the darkness, allowing better maneuverability and thus greater competence in covering the ground.

They hurried through an open glade, the rain slashing like daggers at clothing and bare skin alike before they passed again under the eaves of the still standing trees and gained what slight shielding they offered. Aragorn ground his teeth and stumbled on after his companion, oddly thankful for the slapping leaves and branches. They were some indication at least, that his guide was still before him when the fey lightlessness momentarily darkened his vision again.

One moment he was moving forward with all speed, the next he was plastered against a solid wall of muscle and bone, surprisingly warm against his cold cheek. Instinctively, he rebounded a pace.

"Harwan?"

No answer beyond the whipping wind moaning through branches, tearing at tenacious leaves, and the rain tattooing irrevocable patterns upon this morning's lush landscape.

"Harwan!" Something very close to panic pierced his tenuous hold on reason. Aragorn strode forward frantically, tripped over the kneeling man and fell head over heels down the side of a deep, rocky depression. He landed with an oomph, all the breath driven from his lungs, on back and shoulder, tucked up like a curled centipede, in the middle of a small stream.

"Har-" the shout died as pebbles and fist-sized rocks began to rain down on him and, as lightning flashed again, a pair of rapidly descending boots appeared above him. Aragon rolled away hurriedly as Harwan landed with a splash, more or less on his feet, in the exact spot Aragorn had just vacated.

The sailor barked an order, gesturing urgently back along the channel, and began wading down the gently-sloping streambed.

Like a fish, Aragorn flopped over on his back, the stream coursing around the barrier of his body, those needles of rain stinging his face, and cursed Borlath, Harwan, and all the Valar. Rising was less easily accomplished this time, as now his shoulder throbbed in time with his aching head and a knife-sharp flash of pain caught him by surprise when he finally got his feet under him again. Slumping against the rain-slicked vertical wall on the opposite side from their descent, he breathed deeply, settling his weight slowly, praying to the Valar he had just been cursing that the ankle was merely sprained and not broken.

The chasm was at least twice his height, they would have to scramble getting out of it, but he did notice immediate benefits. The roar of the wind was abated, the flying debris lost its deadliness the moment it dropped below the level of the steep incline and most importantly, they were below ground level, mitigating the chances of being struck by lightning.

He would have missed it in the dark had not those icy fingers snatched at his wrist again. Though this time, with fear worn down by exhaustion, he did not even twitch, just stopped and waited for direction.

His hand was guided to what felt like an overhang of rock, then his shoulder – the bad one – pushed down so he had either to push back or drop to his knees. He went down. And then lightning illuminated a small, dry space, barely large enough for the two of them, hollowed out of the vertical stone wall. It was little more than a bed of pebbles overhung by a thick lip of boulder, but it was above the stream, out of the wind and rain, and, for all practical purposes, safe, if not comfortable.

Though the day had neither started nor progressed well, there was a least a glimmer of hope that they might be fortunate enough to see its end, so long as no flash flood higher up the mountain turned their little stream into a raging river.

Almost before his posterior hit the dry ground, Aragorn was wrapping his arms around his knees, dropping his forehead incautiously between them so he jerked back up when his bruised forehead met boney cartilage. Harwan's large hand shot out, seizing his chin unerringly, even in the dark.

Aragorn pulled back. "It is no worse than the one you bear; in all likelihood, much better. I was never unconscious."

He was surprised when the fingers loosed his chin and he felt his companion's arm rise to explore the goose egg on his own forehead. He had spoken Common, with asperity, so perhaps the translation had been conveyed in tone if not actual words.

The bump on Harwan's head had not bled, but it had been the size of a pomegranate the last time Aragorn had had good look at it. Thinking back over their ascent, Harwan seemed to have had no difficulty navigating the terrain, moving with ease around or over fallen, and falling, objects in their path. Which made it unlikely the man was suffering from concussion. Still, it would be better if they both remained alert and awake.

To that end, he almost left the broken sword strapped to his back; it made it uncomfortable to lean back against the wall. But in the end he shimmied out of his soaked coat, unbuckled the straps and took it off, laying it sheathed between them. The coat he threw over his knees and hoped it would dry.

Despite the wind still howling overhead, the sometimes intermittent, though often continual flickering of lightning, and the equally frequent cracks of thunder, despite being cold and wet and dripping still from head to toe, he kept nodding off.

For the first time in his life, Aragorn began to process a sense of how time flowed for his elven kin. There was no essence of movement decreeing moments passing, no discernment of hours ticking away; no measurement at all - beyond his heartbeat. Only the storm relentlessly battering the island.

Had it been only a few hours ago the boat had dropped them off on the tranquil beach? That he had been leisurely bathing in the spring? Only a day ago he had been so pleasantly occupied wandering the streets of Númenor admiring the art and architecture of the infamous doomed island of his forbearers? Just this morning he had dreamt of the fair _Even Star_? Truly just a few days since he had boarded the ship?

Surely he had lived a lifetime in the space of this long afternoon.

He wondered how Borlath and crew were faring. Had they outrun the storm? Would they turn back immediately? How long before he and Harwan could feasibly expect to see the ship's sails on the horizon if all was well? If not … he refused to let his mind wander in that direction.

Night fell, though the only difference was the quality of the darkness.

Beside him, Harwan slept. Eventually Aragorn allowed his straining eyes to close as well; there was little to see even when lightning lit the landscape. He had stared for what seemed like hours at the water seeping down the hard-packed earth and stone of the wall across from their little niche and was thankful it did not appear to have affected the level of the stream in its bed. Occasionally, when the rain let up a bit and thunder ceased to hammer his ear drums, he realized he could hear its merry gurgling as it wound along its course impervious to the elemental forces wrecking havoc above.

He tuned his ear, as his brothers had taught him, to hear only the stream and gave up fighting his exhausted body. His heart slipped away to Irmo's fair gardens where one of the Maia wove dreams specifically for Aragorn of far away hearth and home.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

If there was anything Aragorn hated, though that word had never been much used in his vocabulary, it was being forced to stillness. He was capable when pressed, because of course his tutors had all instilled the necessity of ordering the mind in quiet, but it was not a process he had taken to naturally in his impatient youth.

Harwan had all but pushed him out into the rain when, finally, late in the afternoon of the next day, the eye of the storm began to move off. The sky had begun to lighten gradually, a pale grey made opalescent by the still sheeting silver rain, and it continued to rain as if the clouds had absorbed enough of the Sundering Sea to lay bare all the ruins swallowed up long Ages past.

It had rained enough already, Aragorn thought irritably, that he should be able walk right off the beach into what remained of Maedhros fortress, and on across the exposed floor of the sea through the ancient Girdle of Melian and over the drowned mountains into the remains of Gondolin.

The path downhill was even more treacherous than it had been going up the day before. Though he no longer had to dodge lightning bolts, the way was precarious and seemed to have steepened as though the rain had sheared off some of the mountainside. He spent quite a lot of the downhill trip on his backside, sliding in the mud when his bad ankle would turn as he came down on it wrong, or his feet suddenly hit a soft spot and spurted out from under him. Not that it mattered; he would no sooner pick himself up than the heavy rain washed him clean again. More than once he had the breath jolted out of him when he lost his balance sliding and smacked his bruised shoulder against the ground, or a fallen tree, or forgot and grabbed a convenient bush or limb with the wrong hand, to steady himself.

The mountainside looked as if it had been ravaged by war. In places, despite the rain, stumps still smoldered, lightning blasted trees, not quite dead yet, keened still, the sound almost below auditory senses, felt more than heard. Foliage had been ripped from the ground and lay draped, still green and shining now with raindrops, like glittering snoods over the still standing trees and bushes. Much of the forested hillside was laid waste, massive ancient trunks uprooted and broken like snapped twigs thrown down by a petulant child. They lay cradled against one another, branches interwoven in death as they been in life. He had to clamber over not a few blocking the path in his trek downhill.

Aragorn turned his hands palms up to examine them in the dim light. Quite wrinkled and water-logged they were. He had not been dry in more than twenty-four hours and from the looks of the ranked banks of clouds still standing sentinel off the island's leeward side, it was likely to be sometime yet before they would be able to dry out. He had picked up quite a few new swear words in his time in Lindon and strung them all together now, throwing in an elvish curse or two he had learned from his brother's to round out the lot.

Nothing like this had been in his plans when he had decided to trace the footsteps of his recently-discovered relations, though perhaps, he realized with sudden acumen, he was getting just a little taste of how it might have been in the last Age when the ocean had swallowed up those ancestors.

It was beyond arrogant, the Valar could have no interest in his mortal comings and goings, but it crossed his mind that perchance his desire to know his kin had piqued them in some way. And then he thought of the angry, seeking malevolence that had pricked his awareness as he and Harwan had struggled up the mountainside seeking shelter. Mayhap he was not so far off in his reasoning; Sauron had once been a close companion of one of the Valar. Though even that thought seemed inordinately presumptuous, despite the warnings his foster father had clearly articulated.

His feet slipped out from under him again and Aragorn arrived on the beach in a rather more precipitous fashion than he would have preferred, stopping only when his soaked boots plunged ankle-deep in wet sand at the end of the downhill path. He sat for a moment, assessing the shock of the landing his battered body had absorbed. He was weary to the bone, hungry, and not a little light-headed.

He rose, slowly, and pulled his boots one by one from the sucking sand, scanning the scattered and shattered remnants of scorched crates and barrels, their contents flung about as if a giant had been dicing with the containers. He had been anticipating finding the provisions unscathed. Alas, another false hope.

Salted-fish littered the beach like silver stones, here and there an incongruous round of cheese lay on its side like a cart wheel wedged deep into the sand, the crate of hardtack looked as if lightning had halved it neatly in two, the contents of which appeared to have melted into a massive sodden lump of paste. The barrel of peas might be salvageable, but they would need fire to cook the hard little pellets and that did not look like a possibility at least before morning.

Wincing as he put weight on that ankle again, he made a quick reconnaissance of the beach, pleased to find a wooden box of dates to go with a round of cheese he tucked into one of the voluminous pockets of his coat. The dates were covered in a fine grit of sand that not even the persistent rain and finger scrubbing could scour away, but they were edible, if a little gritty, and made a bit of headway against the lingering giddiness swirling behind his eyes.

While he wasn't particularly worried they would starve, their lot was, of a sudden, considerably bleaker than he had envisioned. He was sure he could feed them off the land for a time, _if_ the bloody rain ever stopped. It would require foraging and snares as Harwan's bow had been in the wrecked boat and some cautious experimentation since he recognized little of the island's flora. But until Anor reappeared they would have to make do with cheese, dates and what edible wild plants he could find.

On the bright side, they should have no difficulty sustaining themselves for the few days it would take Borlath to sail back to Tol Morwen.

When the tide was out again, he would have to see if their belongings left in the boat had had the decency to sink straight down where they might be retrieved, or floated off on the storm-wracked sea. Without much hope, he prayed for the former, though he expected the latter.

He tucked the box dates under his good arm, left the peas as they were and turned to head back up the mountain. There was little else to salvage and what there was would not be hurt by the continued rain.

He passed the bent twigs he had marked at the spot where he'd come out through the underbrush, he had had to splash his way quite a distance downstream in order to find a spot he could scale on his own in order to get up and out. Then turned into the trampled patch where Harwan had led the way across last night and made his way down the side of the ravine until he stood over the spot where they had sheltered.

"Harwan," he called, learning over the edge. The sailor's face appeared from under the ledge. "I found some things on the beach. Here." Aragorn knelt, then lay flat and handed down the box of dates and then wriggled the cheese out of the pocket he had wedged it into, passing it down as well. Their hands did not quite meet, but he could reach far enough down, and Harwan far enough up, that the drop was not precipitous and even one-handed the older man easily caught both items.

Harwan grinned and gestured for him to come back down, miming eating.

Aragorn shook his head. "I ate some dates. I am going up further," he pointed upstream, "to see if I can find a larger space. Something a little less exposed to the elements."

Harwan scowled but in no way tried to detain him, and Aragorn clambered to his feet, offering a jaunty wave as he backed away from the edge.

He moved steadily up the mountain, pausing to wipe rain from his face at the spot where Borlath had taken him through the trees up toward the natural spring. It was a known, easily available source of fresh water, he should begin looking for a more permanent shelter somewhere in its vicinity if he could reach it. He turned in, sick at heart at the continuing devastation revealed as he resumed climbing.

If he had not known better, he might have thought Glaurang yet rode the winds aloft the island, burning and singeing all within his purview. The bright heads of the riotous wild flowers lay broken as if trodden upon, their colors muted in the mix of mud and shredded foliage layering the ground. Here a new avenue among the trees had been opened up clear to the spring, as though the imagined dragon had stopped, perhaps for a drink, and swished his tail like a cat, uprooting and then pushing aside the fallen debris so it piled up nearly to the middle of the tall trees still standing on either side of the deforested cut.

Aragorn had wormed his way through a narrow opening, barely avoiding bringing the whole pile down on himself when the sword pommel he had again strapped to his back, caught on a jammed log, shifting the entire heap of debris. He had judged it too unstable to climb, but settled enough to get through. Heart in his throat he had squirmed enough to bend his knees a bit more and dislodge the pommel before sinking down to crawl the rest of the way.

Now he stood in the middle of the barren strip, squinting through the rain and preternaturally gloomy afternoon dusk, appalled by the desolation wrought all around him. Just yesterday this had been a lushly forested hillside, its wild landscape proudly displaying all that nature's bounty had bestowed. This afternoon, those trees that still stood stretched denuded limbs into the weeping sky, broken branches littered the ground, and stripped foliage plastered the muddy new pathway.

A different kind of chaos reigned today, reflecting none of the beauty of yesterday's majestic panorama.

He moved forward again, up the barren strip toward the spring, peering from side to side anxious to find some larger, less damp accommodation where they might at least dry out a little.

An hour's determined searching turned up nothing and Aragorn moved higher, toward the standing stone where the river Teglin, in another Age, had flowed swift and sure in its course. The trauma to the earth in the drowning of Beleriand had closed off that channel, but there were bound to be caves in and around the area, it was just a matter of finding one.

He searched until the light dimmed and he knew he would barely have enough time to make it back down the mountain to their current abode and was turning to make the trip back down when the absence of light caught at the corner of his vision and he swung around hurriedly to investigate. It was just a crack, a slight v-shaped wedge, but he slithered through it sideways, had to bend double for a couple of steps, but then the solid rock opened up airily into a roughly rectangular chamber snug and dry and warm. He had not realized he was cold until the warmth of the enclosed space enfolded him. He wriggled his way back out immediately, but real dusk was settling over the mountain already and he knew he would not be able to find it again in the dark.

But he could not in good conscience leave Harwan to wonder what had happened to him. And so he made his way reluctantly back down the mountain, the last of the silvered light dissipating as he splashed upstream to crawl in next to his companion.

Harwan handed him some dates, much less gritty, and then a wedge of cheese. Aragorn accepted both offerings gratefully, ate them with gusto, drank from their gurgling stream and after once more unstrapping the broken sword to lay aside, settled with his back to the uncomfortable rock wall.

He had found, frustratingly, that without the aid of sign language he did not communicate well with the sailor, and so rather than try to tell him of their good fortune, he settled to sleep, hoping against hope, the night hours would pass quickly and with them, the rain.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

He woke with cramped leg muscles, a sore back and an aching ankle – to the sound of rain. Aragorn opened one eye and turned his head on his knees, the better to observe his companion.

Harwan slept like a rock and snored like a mastiff.

He wondered why he had not heard it before, then thought it likely the man had slept no more than he the first couple of nights, and closed his eyes on a sigh, drifting off again, none too anxious to go back out in the downpour. Three days in wet clothes and he was beginning to worry there might be mushrooms growing between his toes; not to mention those intimate parts uncomfortably chafed by the constant wetness.

"Mûmakil offal." Aragorn tried out one of his most disgusting new curses under his breath when sleep refused its oblivion again. He needed to empty his bladder, an insistent compulsion with all this rain, as if the sound of it drumming overhead made that requirement more pressing. He palmed a couple of dates and crawled out from under cover, tending first to the persistent urgency, then shambling off down the mountainside again, working out the kinks another night passed folded in half had crimped in fatigued muscles.

His shoulder was not so bad today, though his ankle still felt hot and tender. He ignored both with the supreme indifference of youth, his only concession being to grab a few more vines and bushes as he slipped and slid down the steep incline, making sure he did not land ankle-deep in the sand this time.

The rain washed beach looked much the same, though the surf no longer pounded the sandy shore with the same intensity. The waves curled low and gentle, gliding in on long soporific sighs rather than with the hissing, boiling, churning of two days ago. He held up a hand to test the wind and felt only rain. It came down as straight as if Ulmo had gathered up all the waters of the world and poured them down directly from the sky overhead.

Aragorn turned to stare out through the sheeting rain, willing sails to appear on the horizon. Any sails, for surely there were no marauding pirates this far north where even the shores of the continent were wild and uninhabited.

Visiting history was all good and well, but living for any length of time on this spit of land in the middle of the Sundering Sea would drive him quickly insane. The valley was larger than the island and Rivendell's secured holdings ranged much farther afield than just the Last Homely House and its surrounding vale. From the time he had been old enough to roam freely, he had been permitted to wander at will inside the borders of Imladris.

In those long days of youth, before he had been deemed old enough to ride with his brother's yrch hunting, he had become intimately acquainted with each fold and crease of the land, every cascade and cliff, both rivers and all the tiny tributaries they had spawned. There was no chasm, cataract, fissure, ravine or gulch he had not explored, no tree he did not know intimately, no animal, mineral, or vegetable he could not name, no plant that he did not know the properties of, no inch of land that wasn't as familiar as the back of his own hand.

And he had chafed under those conditions.

But home called to him, now, like Tol Eressëa must call to elven kind in Middle-earth; with a clarion voice that bespoke surety and safety in a way he had never needed before, and so, had never desired before either.

Aragorn sighed and turned his attention back to the beach. He was incapable of living the elven ideal of what will be will be and anxiety, yet another thing he had little acquaintance with and few coping skills to manage it, continued to mount with each passing hour.

What had happened to the ship? His companions? Borlath? Were they becalmed and bailing to stay afloat with all the water coming down from the sky? Working on repairs? Had ship and crew been swallowed whole by one of those writhing creatures depicted on Borlath's lost casket? His mind struggled to reject the thought but couldn't quite muster the necessary confidence to dismiss it out of hand. He had never believed in sea monsters, but he could hear Glorfindel as if the golden warrior were standing next to him, reminding him that just because he had never seen one, did not mean it did not exist.

He was tired and edgy and things were so out of his control, he gave in to the ten-year-old that wanted to poke and prod at the sea weed and storm wrack the high tide had stranded on the sand. Picking up a stick, he began to wander down the beach, stooping every so often when something glinted unexpectedly or a strange shell, half hidden in the sand, caught his attention.

Instinct warned him not to touch the clear bladders with dark strands of inky blue and purple at their centers, but he wondered if there might be a way to preserve one of the specimens to take home to his father. Many were smaller than his closed fist, but there were quite a few larger than his head. Nothing presented itself as a way to keep any of them fresh, so he strolled on, thinking that if the island ever dried out, he would need to gather more plant samples as well. Those he had collected previously had been pressed between the leaves of a huge tome he had borrowed from Borlath and stuffed in his pack, which could well be travelling the ocean currents somewhere in Doriath by now.

He found what might have been an entire school of blue fish, none bigger than his thumb, enmeshed in a bed of seaweed. A few appeared to be alive still and these he picked free one by one and carried them down into the surf, but they washed right back up on the sand, too long beached and too feeble to employ the miniscule yellow fins on their own behalf. When he found another, similar batch, he let them be and meandered on, prodding things at random until he grew tired of the exploration.

Aragorn squared his shoulders and collected the ten years he had momentarily laid aside, disciplining his mind to more productive thoughts.

Seaweed was edible, he knew, considered a delicacy in places far to the south in Harad, though not in Rivendell. The sea had washed up a lot of it, in a long, unbroken line up and down the beach as far as the eye could see. Utilizing his stick again, he nudged aside the top layer at his feet and leaned down to liberate a hank from its bed. He tasted it tentatively and found it too salty and too viscous for his liking. Though, looking around with more concentration, he saw several different kinds.

So he tried them all, judiciously, and found one that was tender and moist, and though still quite saliferous, not at all slimy. He made a mental note to build a shallow little cache near the high tide mark, something he could line with stones that would allow him to maintain a level of sea water to keep it fresh until used.

He turned again to the water, realizing it was less murky and brighter this morning, as though reflecting a sun not yet visible through the clouds. All thoughts of seaweed gone, he spun in the sand and raced down the beach to where the remains of their boat shifted restlessly with the sighing and soughing of the surging water. He thought the tide was probably as far out as it would go until Ithil grew round again and that would not be for several days yet. Struggling out of his coat, he dropped with all the grace and agility of mûmakil, down on his rear, to wrestle off his boots. He had an idea he might have trouble getting them back on, wet as they were, and if they did not dry on his feet he was going to be in further trouble; however, if he had to swim at any point, he wanted out of them.

The water at the half of the boat still wedged in the rocks was chest height. He was glad it was not over his head and pleased that the tide was no longer sucking like a calf at its mother's teat. Harwan's side of the boat was nowhere to be seen, but Aragorn found both his pack and Harwan's bow snagged on splintered wooden slats jutting out unevenly from the jagged bottom. The bow was undoubtedly beyond battle use, even if they could manage to dry it out slowly, but it might be effective enough to hunt with still, if they were careful with it. And that could significantly increase their likelihood of eating better.

For a moment, relief drenched him as handily as the rain. Slinging pack and bow over a shoulder, he waded in to shore to leave them well above the high tide mark, taking no chances that they might yet float away.

Returning to the water, he began a methodical, sweeping search of the gently shifting sand and rocks first to the left, then to the right of the boat. He found Borlath's chest quite by accident, and only because the rounded edge of the buried box bruised the bare arch of his sprained foot when he stepped on it. He was not far from the starboard side of the boat and had to dive several times before he was able to dislodge it enough to bring it up; the sand had been packed in so tightly around the thing it had required finding a sharp stone with which to dig it out.

Aragorn wondered if it had buried itself in the sand purposely, waiting for him to find it. He wished, without hope, the map - with its certain magical properties - had done the same.

He spent an hour systematically combing the ocean floor over a wide area, tracing and retracing his steps in tight grid patterns guaranteed to turn up the smallest item. He did not find the map, but he did come across more of the clear bladders floating in the sea, long tentacles dangling quite beautifully beneath them. Since his only knowledge of sea creatures had to do with myths and legends he gave them a wide berth, even when it meant having to wait to search an area until they had floated away.

Being no wetter than he had been prior to the map finding expedition, he eventually splashed his way back to shore and headed down the beach the opposite way, wandering with neither purpose nor intent, but paying attention to the smallest little crab that scuttled away at his approach – the big ones too – wondering if they would be better eating than seaweed. He glanced back, as his mind turned over the possibility and how to get at the meat, and saw that he was out of sight of the ruined boat.

He hesitated, thinking it probably time to turn around, considered there was nothing better to do besides drag Harwan up to the new shelter he had found the night before, and so, with a shrug, continued on down the beach.

He estimated he was on the other side of the island, almost directly opposite their beach, when he found it. The slightly dented, circular map case was draped in seaweed and just as slimy as its green dressings, but intact, and when he twisted it open, the map was as safe and dry curled inside its nest as if it had just been pulled from its berth in the ship master's cabin.

Aragorn shook his head in mild disbelief, but he was grinning as he carefully refitted the two sliding pieces together and tucked it under his arm with gratitude.

Magic. His father was wont to descry magical properties as natural science in its rawest form. And when Aragorn's ability to heal had begun to manifest itself, it had been yet a further proof Elrond's premise was based in fact. Both the map and buried box fell well outside the parameters of natural science and it notched up his concern a little more. If a map and a box could contain magical properties, how much more easy was it to ascribe credit to the myths and legends purporting the existence of big fish and even bigger sea monsters? He shoved away the thought, not wanting to believe his new friends were nothing more than fish chum now.

Rather than turn back since he halfway around all ready, Aragorn moved on, but with a lighter step, despite the rain still pouring down, despite the growling of his stomach, despite the corner of his mind that refused to dismiss the sea monsters.

Preoccupied with thoughts of the map and the box, he strode up and around what looked like it might have once been one of their barrels of food. Fifty yards on, what he had seen caught up with his churning thoughts.

He turned back, dread opening up a yawning pit in his stomach full of cold, bitter sea-water-tasting bile, and found himself scarcely able to force his feet into motion. He had no wish to verify what his mind had registered, but neither could he chose ignorance and hope over the reality awaiting his perusal.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

My apologies to anyone still reading this story … this delay is exactly the reason it's only the second WIP I've ever posted and it will be a few more years before I attempt to post like this again. In the meantime, here are the last couple of paragraphs (slightly edited) so you don't have to go figure out where Chapter 10 ended and to jump start a very short Chapter 11.

_Preoccupied with thoughts of the map and the box, Aragorn absent-mindedly circumvented what looked like it might once have been one of their barrels of food. Fifty yards on, the broken bits of fractured, splintered wood, registered; he stopped, swaying backwards almost as if jerked by an unseen hand. _

_Dread opened a yawning pit in his stomach and crawled up his throat. A backwash of bitter, salt-water bile rose in his gorge, reflexively inciting a gagging urge to vomit. He fought it down and turned slowly, scarcely able to force his feet into motion. He had no wish to verify what his mind had registered, but neither could he choose ignorance and hope over the reality awaiting his perusal …_

Nausea swam up the strangely charged current flowing from his stomach to his brain as the diminishing distance afforded further particulars. It required no elven eye sight even in the rain to see the jagged holes in the scattered planks, obviously torn from their fastenings. Some yet bore the remains of rivet and rove and he trod carefully in his bare feet as he picked his way through the strewn wrack and ruin.

The map cylinder slipped unnoticed from under his arm as he bent to turn over bits of wood festooned with broken barnacles nestled in the furry greenish-black growth he had seen sailors scrubbing from the underside of the great ships in the harbor back in Lindon. Aragorn dropped to his knees, his fingers seeking definition as he turned a much battered and splintered round of wood, finding the fragment of a carven symbol he knew had graced the tall spear of the main mast. Borlath had told him, off-handedly, in the eastern culture it was the eye of luck and every ship bore its image somewhere on its timber.

His fingers slid off the slippery wood as all the implications came together in a rush of comprehension.

Dead. They were all dead.

Had they gone north, then? Around the island? Or had the currents bordering the island carried the wreck of the ship to this far side?

His foster-father's warnings of danger stalking his footsteps, of menace striking without warning, of imperiling surrounding shadows, all coalesced in the form of a malevolent storm that had snatched away the lives of thirty-seven men.

Thirty-seven lives lost due to his impetuous desire to seek his roots.

Guilt was not an over familiar emotion; it had never been used as a tool for molding character in Imladris. But it swamped him now, replacing the dread of discovery with crushing culpability.

Ever throughout his formative years had it been borne upon his young mind that responsibility for one's actions was of paramount importance; every choice had a consequence and one did not slough off the responsibilities resulting from those choices.

The voice of his tutor joined the others in his head, Erestor reminding him that the ship's captain had made choices too, as had the crew that sailed with him.

It did not quiet the clamoring voices of the dead, all shouting in their strange guttural, only half understood language.

Aragorn bowed his head into his hands, the rain mingling with a flood of tears he could not have controlled if he had wanted too. He was neither tough, nor toughened yet, and the tender heart swelled so with grief he thought it would burst. In the moment, he welcomed the thought; his own death would have been easier to bear.

Elven time flowed over and around him, so the counting of it ceased to exist.

The rain slowed and stopped.

The cloud cover began to thin.

The sun came out.

His shirt began to dry.

Harwan found him slumped amidst the wreckage of the ship, as spent and limp as the drying seaweed on which he sat. Aragorn did not even notice the sailor until he was hauled unceremoniously to his feet.

A few short, sharp foreign words were snapped in his face. The younger man roused himself enough to presume - since his coat and boots were also being flourished between them - that Harwan had been worried he had gone visiting those First Age ruins of which he was so enamored.

"Come," Harwan barked, jerking an unresisting arm toward the denuded forest on this side of the island. "We go."

"Harwan." Aragorn pulled away, sweeping his gaze pointedly over the planks and pieces of ship railing decorating the white sandy beach.

The sailor ignored them, though his own eyes, as he met Aragorn's pained look, were full of grief as well. "Death comes," he said unequivocally. "We go."

Aragorn took his boots and coat, bent to retrieve the map cylinder and cast a last glance at the now bright and sunny beach littered with sea wrack, then turned to trudge across the sand in Harwan's wake.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

The resinous smell of burning pitch filled the narrow passage way, reminding Aragorn that his torch was nearly spent. He needed to turn back, but the drift of cooler air wafting over his bare hands and face drew him onwards; there was an exit ahead.

He had decided, early in his explorations, this network of interconnecting underground caverns must honeycomb the entire ridge of Tol Morwen, but he had found no other entrance or exit beyond the hillside opening they used to come and go from their new home.

There were few comforts in his new life, but they were dry, they had food to sustain them, a place to retreat if it rained again, and room to stretch out, even if it was on the hard cold floor, to sleep.

No resentment tarnished his thankfulness for those small blessings, though Aragorn had thought often in the days following the discovery of the wreckage, that he would rather have perished with the rest than live with the guilt.

Now he moved forward cautiously, holding the torch aloft well in front of himself, testing each foot fall before stepping further along the passage way. He had twice come upon deceptive dead ends that might have ended him as well; interstices that had smelt of humus and tropical air, but had opened onto deep, though narrow, declivities. Narrow enough that had he found them at home, he might have jumped across to explore the other side. He had contemplated it briefly the first time, but on pondering had decided attempting to jump back and forth into man-sized holes might not be the wisest course of action.

It was the change in the quality of the darkness that alerted him to the fact that he was out of the cave, and the sense of soaring vastness that instantly replaced the slight oppression he experienced in the cavern tunnels. He was still inside something though; he sensed rather than saw, walls, or at least the semblance of walls.

Aragorn swung the torch first right then left, casting the light toward the ground as well. Crumbling stonework appeared briefly on either side, as though he stood in a doorway, while strewn about his feet, as far the smoking torch illuminated, huge stones lay tumbled as if cast like dice from a giant hand.

A smile flickered as Aragorn thought briefly of the fortunes in shells and pebbles that changed hands nightly before their fire. Harwan's first carvings had been a pair of dice.

Their days had fallen quickly into a semblance of routine. Mornings were spent learning to communicate. Aragorn, bringing to bear his unusual aptitude for languages, was surprised to find Harwan leaning Common as quickly as he was picking up the strange Haradrim patois.

Afternoons, Harwan sat on the beach with a fishing pole he had made from a willow branch, some stripped vines, and the little scuttling crabs Aragorn had seen on the beach. The hooks had been the second things carved; cunning little works of art, both lovely to behold, in their spiny sharpness, and useful.

Aragorn's afternoons were spent trailing game, setting snares, or skinning and dressing - when his labors bore fruit.

More often than not, they ate fish for dinner.

Aragorn glanced again at the torch. He had spent the first couple of nights in the cave huddled close to the fire – once the island wood had dried enough to make one – wandering the Númenórean map in the flickering light, while Harwan whittled.

The map, however, could hold his attention for only so long before restlessness got the better of him. Harwan's advice not to leave the cave after dark had proven good counsel when Aragorn, in one of his _no one is going to tell me what to do anymore _moods, had stomped out of the cavern and come face to face with a _big_ cat nosing around the entrance. Fortunately, they had spooked each other and Aragorn had retreated unharmed, but with a healthy regard for the island night life.

The first night he had begun wandering the passageways branching off the back of their cave, his makeshift torch had burnt out rather quicker than he had expected, drenching him in a cold sweat in the sudden and complete darkness that had descended at the end of a drawn out sputter. He had learnt quite a lot about sensory deprivation feeling his way back to the main chamber in complete darkness. Had they not had a fire, he would have been hopelessly lost in the complicated maze. He had always had a keen sense of smell and that alone had guided him back along the path he had traversed with the light.

A little experimenting, a process he had learned at the knee of his foster father, had proven useful in making a longer-lasting torch and he had since been careful not to let excitement lead him further than he knew would allow his safe return.

Stupidly, he had let this one burn dangerously low, so his priority must be to find new material to augment his swiftly ebbing light. Harwan worried when he was gone too long and Aragorn was already past their agreed upon allotment of time.

He cast about, high and low, looking for anything that might burn and found only more tumbled rock and debris and towering walls that must once have been thick indeed, from the enormity of some of the boulders strewn amongst the rubble littering the floor. His feet tripped over a sudden up thrust in the uneven ground and he bent to swipe at the thick layer of accumulated scree shifting beneath his boots.

The find he unearthed rocked him back on his heels where he sat contemplating for several moments before bending forward to clear away a further patch of floor. For it was definitely floor, not ground, and made of marble if his senses were not totally bewildered. His mind juggled wildly chaotic conjecture, trying to order the fantastic thoughts with what he knew of Tol Morwen and its history.

Straightening, he rose and lifted the torch again, high over his head. Looking up he realized he could see stars, quite a lot of them in fact. Huge shadowy stones, piled up like children's blocks, rose well above his head, looming against the night sky, jagged edges showing like broken teeth between what once must have been graceful, arched columns. The encompassing walls, he discovered, were not so much broken as gashed and pitted and scarred. And had been hewn from solid rock.

Aragorn turned slowly, jaw gaping as his mind grappled with the idea taking shape. He stood in the ruins of the long hidden fortress of Nargothrond, home of Finrod Felagund, brother to the Lady Galadriel, grandmother of his unattainable beloved. The breath whooshed out of his lungs.

Centuries – no eons – more than two Ages of eons stretched backward from this moment in time, like an unbroken ribbon flowing along on the backs of the epic poems and stories and lore that in this moment suddenly became much more than dry, dull history.

How Borlath would have laughed to see him thus awestruck. For a pregnant moment, the poignancy of missing the sea captain and his crew threatened to overwhelm Aragorn. The flames of his forgotten torch wavered mistily before his eyes, then steadied, drawing his attention again.

He shook off the threatened lethargy and cast about for a way through the labyrinth of debris stretching out as far as his eye could pierce the darkness. Living history aside, he needed to find fuel and return to their abode before Harwan grew worried enough to go in search of him. Negotiating the passages often required two hands, as well as feet, and that broken arm would handicap the sailor, not to mention, despite the language barrier, the man had made his dislike of small, dark places very apparent early on.

Aragorn had difficulty, though, remembering that urgency as he moved further into the once underground fortress. That it stood open to the sky, now, must have been due to the cataclysm that had been visited upon Middle-earth with the drowning of Beleriand.

The slow march of time and nature had visited its own destruction and decay upon the legendary stronghold. Vines had crept down over once smooth walls, finding and filling cracks and crevices with strong green tendrils that eventually widened those cracks into fissures and faults. Water, whether in trickles or gushes, had worn away much of the interior walls, but sensitive fingers could still discern traceries of heraldries carven into the walls; heraldries Aragorn knew of only because they were preserved in Imladris by the current keeper of elven lore, Elrond Peredhil.

Clambering over colossal shards of marble, the edges whetted down by long years of exposure to the elements, Aragorn began forming a picture of a great hall in his mind. Of shimmering elven lights reflecting off polished wood, jewel-colored rugs glowing softly in the light as well, the glimmer of marble flecked with gold and the molten silver of mithril. Of graceful doorways carved in the shapes of great overarching trees, airy furniture arranged along walls hung with tapestries depicting Telperion and Laurelin. Of majestic soaring ceilings where flew the likeness of carven birds among the sky of stars over Cuiviénen.

His thoughts so occupied, he did at first assimilate the implication of the spectrally-glowing mountain impeding his progress. He noticed some dried up, hairy old vines still clinging to a cracked and fissured section of wall and moved to tug at one experimentally. A long length came down and he knelt to wedge the leaf-wrapped handle of his torch into a small gap between two stones, gingerly twining the new flammable around the old so as to not smother the current flame. When he was satisfied the torch would see him home again, he palmed the handle and rose again, thinking to backtrack now and return anon tomorrow.

The swift passage of torchlight again awoke a spectral gleam, though Aragorn dismissed it as a trick of the eye in the star washed gloom of the night. He had taken several steps in reverse of his forward path when he stopped abruptly and swung back just as he done on the beach. Only this time his eye beheld nothing he had imagined.

Treading closer, torch blazing now with new fuel, he found himself at the foot of a steadily sloping mountain of gold, mithril and jewels in every hue of the rainbow, all flashing and sparkling in the torchlight. It too rose above his head and spread out from his feet to fill what appeared to be half the chamber = at least from this side of the pile.

He could only stand, jaw flapping again, staring at the unexpected discovery. Clearly Borlath and company had never stumbled over this king's ransom, else they would all have been living in princely comfort in some far off Haradrim palace.

No, this hoard appeared to have been untouched in all the millennia that had passed since the razing of Nargothrond by Glaurung. The stories of the dragon's hoard were legion _and_ legend. He wondered why - in the forty-some years between the slaying of Glaurung and the beginning of the War of Wrath - none had attempted to salvage anything? Perhaps it had been spelled? Perhaps it still was.

A tentative touch woke no overt evil, nor the tingling sensation he recognized as magic at work. Aragorn picked up a fist-sized emerald, turning its multi-faceted sides so it flashed green fire in the light of the torch. It was too large to adorn a lady's toilette and too flawless in its own right, to be cut into smaller stones, but he had learnt – also at his foster father's knee – how to discern stones of power and this one fairly blazed with energy. Though he could not wield the ancient power, his Maia heritage had marked him in subtle ways he was just beginning to grasp the importance of, now that he understood that heritage.

He yet remembered Elrond's astonishment when as a young boy, prompted by his brothers, he had scoured Rivendell's promontories and peninsulas to find a gift for their father's naming day. Unaware of either his _own_ gift, _or_ the power of the stone he had found, he had presented it with a flourish at the evening celebration, expecting, with all the perspicuity of a six-year-old, to be cosseted and celebrated for his ingenuity in finding such a perfect gift. He remembered being smugly pleased that his efforts had been rewarded beyond his wildest dreams, with absolutely no understanding that his achievement had just confirmed a future he would know nothing of for years to come.

The memory brought a smile now as he hefted the weight of the stone in his hand. If Elrond could not bend its properties to usefulness, it would make a pretty paperweight for his foster father's daughter. The smile faded into a sigh, but Aragorn pocketed the stone and bent to run his fingers through the trailing edge of the massive mountain of loot.

A fortune in pearls sifted through his fingers, along with diamonds and sapphires and lapis lazuli. Rubies three and four times the size of the jewel Borlath had affected on the middle finger of his right hand rolled down the shifting slope.

Bending a keener eye on the hoard he saw it contained many works of art; framed pictures, some of the canvases shredded, some unbelievably intact. Candlestick holders and candelabras, their bases sunk in heaps of jewels, shone with muted glow in the light of his torch. Pieces of those tables and chairs he had been imaging earlier, showing deep scratch and claw marks, as if the dragon had used them like a cat to sharpen his claws. Torn and shredded bits of moldering tapestries, recognizable still, even after all these eons, because elven artifacts were made to last forever. There were ornaments of brass, exquisitely wrought chests more fanciful even than those Aragorn had seen in Borlath's cabin, dwarven-smithed bowls of beaten copper and carved stone, caskets spilling gossamer jewelry so finely crafted it appeared made of spider silk.

It was far more than his mind could comprehend in the few minutes he allowed himself to stare in awe at the cache. Enough, though, he was sure, to finance an army should he ever decide to claim that throne his foster family insisted he was heir to.

Prince of Númenor indeed; why was it he had never felt less princely?

But, Aragorn thought with a grin as he began to fill his pockets, this was sure to up the ante during tomorrow night's dicing. He would wait to share his discovery until he could meet Harwan's pebble bet and raise it by a couple of chrysoberyl.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

_To those readers who've hung around and continued to read this, despite the looooooooong intervals between postings, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you've forgotten the story line - in the last chapter, Aragorn's explorations led him to the discovery of the ruins of an ancient city and a dragon's hoard. _

_I am well aware I have warped First Age canon a little in the interests of the story, but I have attempted to remain within the boundaries of an author's perogative of what if ... _

The dice, carved from the thick oak bottom of one of their ship-wrecked barrels, skittered across the floor, barely coming to rest on a pair of snake eyes before Aragorn artfully flicked his thumb, tossing his wager into the air.

"Two out of three?" the youth inquired genially.

Harwan's dark head lifted like a hound on scent as his gaze followed the arc of a pearl the size of a small bird's egg. He watched as it rose gracefully to its apex before dropping to land amid the largess of the evening's game of chance – a pile of shells and pebbles mounded on the cavern's cool stone floor.

The fire lit a smirk prodding the edges of smug on Aragorn's face as he stretched out his hand to scoop up the die. "Or shall we make it a little more interesting? Three out of five?" he offered, delighted to have roused the aloof sailor's interest.

Deeply tanned, sinewy fingers shot out, ensnaring a wrist in a vise-like grip, jerking the young man to his knees. The youth's palm was turned up and swung nearer the fire where it was minutely inspected before being abruptly released.

Harwan leaned forward, the silent command in his impelling gaze snagging Aragorn uneasily. "You are something more than even Borlath guessed," he said in his own tongue.

Instinctively, the youth shrank back. Perhaps piquing the sailor's interest had been foolish in the extreme.

"The hand of fate does not appear to caress you, either, young one." Harwan's stare darted to the pearl and back again. "How came this into your possession?"

Aragorn stilled a convulsive shudder, feeling suddenly as if he stood before his foster father's desk, pinned by the ancientness of eyes that had chronicled the rise and fall of power over long ages. Shock tingled like a lightning bolt down his spine.

"You are elf kind!" The astounded realization echoed around the cavern.

"Where did you find it?" Implacable will attempted to stifle astonished surprise.

"In the ruins," Aragorn answered without volition, though like a terrier with a rat he refused to abandon his own revelation. "You are elf-kind," he repeated, both awed and irritated. It did not occur to him to be frightened. A momentary pause, as his mind flew back over all he had learned of the sailor, was followed by a slightly aggrieved, "You do not act as an elf."

"Whereas you are not, though act as if you are," Harwan rejoined in like manner, stripping off the bit of cloth Aragorn had fashioned into a sling for his broken arm, the silent inference that it had been both annoying and unnecessary clanging as loud as a fire alarm between them. "What ruins?" The rags keeping the splints in place were peeled off as well, the pieces of wood tossed into the fire with a gusty sigh of relief. In the act or massaging his forearm, the elf's head snapped up and around again. "Never say you have stumbled upon the remains of the hidden city!"

Aragorn, however, refused to be diverted again. "Why? Why would you pretend to be other than you are?"

"I did no such thing."

The ring of veracity in the pronouncement momentarily disconcerted Aragorn's surety. "You never said a word!"

"There was no need. By your own observation you categorized me among men. That was not _my_ error."

"But …" Aragorn sputtered. "But …" His mind was spinning again, as it was wont to do when he found his stated opinions suddenly juxtaposed with the truth of the matter. His tongue might never have shaped the words, but he had certainly treated the elf as a man, and not just in tending the broken arm. "I don't understand," he said finally, searching the hooded gaze.

"Consider it in light of a lesson. Those who see only what they expect, live foreshortened lives." Harwan plucked the pearl from its resting place atop the heap of ante, closing the subject as thoroughly as if he had shut a book. "This is a pearl of Balar. It would fetch much more than passage to the ends of the world. Where found you this?" The elf was surprised to find his heart beat steadily increasing as the possibilities bloomed in his mind. "Where?" He leaned forward again.

Aragorn stared at his suddenly altered companion , re-cataloging the features of a face that was exactly the same as the one attached to the water-logged body he had dragged from the surf. It seemed an age ago, though in reality it had been little more than a full cycle of Ithil's watch.

Thick, black hair, worn cut-at-the-shoulders as men wore it, covered the ears. But he saw, too, the elven contour he had failed to mark – because, as Harwan had observed so acerbically - he had seen only what he had expected to see; a _man_ whose life at sea had toughed his skin to the consistency of old leather, whose eyes were perpetually narrowed from long exposure to bright sun, whose hands and arms bore the scars of years wielding grappling hooks and tar brushes, tacking sea-soaked rope and canvas.

Though the _face_ was no different, it was again born in on Aragorn how ageless in its imperturbability the weathered countenance appeared.

In his defense, no elf in his experience – admittedly limited – had borne scars, nor suffered the effects of exposure to the elements; not even his brothers, who had practically lived outdoors since their mother's sailing. Still, had he been home, he would have been banned from patrol, indefinitely, had he missed something so blatant.

"Where?" Harwan repeated, schooling himself to patience in the face of the colt's sudden skittishness.

"I marked the way back, but it is many turnings, and in most of the passages I was bent nearly double. No more than a torch's burning though."

"Nargothrond," Harwan breathed quietly. "You have stumbled upon the ruins of the hidden city." Memories, backed up behind an ages-old cerebral dam, threatened a cataract of remembrance. A tremor ran through his body as the first crack appeared. It would not do to remain here where the bright, curiously ageless eyes, might discern more than either of them had bargained for.

The illusion of age he had wrapped about himself fell away as he rose with all the agility and strength of one who does not decline with years. He said nothing, though he felt the youngster's eyes following him to the narrow turning that led to the cave's entrance.

In the long ages he had roamed Arda alone, dispossessed and friendless, he had never experienced such a burning desire to make himself known once more. It was his own condemnation that had left him wandering the shores of the world through the ages that had followed his brother's self-destruction. No curse forbade his telling; no banishment had been laid upon him. Only honor stood between revelation and repudiation and his honor had been rather ragged for a very long time. So why should it hold him back now?

With a swift glance over his shoulder, Harwan slipped into the turning and strode out. Tuning all his senses to the night sounds, as equally alert for the quiet predator as the raucous marauders, he made his way through the tangled underbrush toward the wide swath of destruction left in the wake of the malevolent storm.

The hidden city of Finrod Felagund. Another crack appeared, exposing the icy edge of the Helcaraxë. He had no wish to dredge up the culpability and shame that rose with recollections of the crossing; those were memories best left undelved. And as good a reason as any to maintain his long silence.

The wash of stars overhead, as he broke through the foliage onto the steep incline, instantly soothed, as he had known they would. They were the only constant in his long life, their light shining equally, without judgment, upon the culpable and the innocent.

Harwan wandered downhill until he found the rocky outcropping he sought and mounted its crest. The field of stars seemed near enough for plucking and he spotted Eärendil's craft hoving over the horizon. What must that inestimable mariner think of him? Did he peer down upon them every night and shake his shaggy head over the caprices of nature that drove mortal and immortal alike? Did he intercede on his young descendant's behalf amongst the Valar who had initiated his nightly voyages?

Had he interceded uselessly on behalf of Isildur? Did Isildur's heir have it in him to walk a different path than his ancestor? Was this young mortal the one who would break the curse of Sauron's power? The shadows of desire often overwhelmed the hearts of men; could he possibly succeed where his predecessor had failed?

Despite the encompassing serenity of the stars, the crack in the dam inevitably widened. A trickle became a steady stream, the flow broadening and deepening until it flooded his soul, indelible memory swamping resolve with a thousand pricking sword points. He could not wade out of the morass while the quicksand of the oath clung to him, dragging him down, down, down into the depths of despair.

Hope blossomed, though, amidst the reminiscences. The heart of Isildur's heir was as yet untainted by the affliction of envy. He had grown to manhood among the Firstborn. Perhaps the son Harwan had fostered had had the wisdom to instill astuteness both of mind and character. The supposition armored his fëa so the piercing swords faded to less harmful dagger pricks. He had not his brother's courage to make an end to his own life, but perhaps the breaking of the world was no longer so far off as to be unimaginable.

He who should know no comfort, whose footsteps must be a curse upon the earth that bore his weight, found himself wrapped in the warmth of the tropical night, the gentle sough of the breeze and the caressing of the waves upon the shore far below echoing the ancient beat of his heart.

Aragorn plucked the pearl from its ignominious bed, holding it aloft between thumb and forefinger. Backlit by the fire, it shone with an inner glow matched only by Ithil's radiance.

It had not taken long for caution to rise with the realization that he dealt not with a man, but an elf. An elf who by language and deed hailed from the far southern reaches of Middle-earth. His wide-ranging lessons had included both factual and presumed knowledge concerning the cults that had formed in Far Harad in the first millennium of the Third Age. Sauron was believed to have a strong foothold in the far south.

His mind continued to churn, speculative conjecture not so much a game now, as he had often played with Erestor in his studies. His survival might be in jeopardy, though he could not bring himself to believe the possibility to be more than remote.

Of the five Istari sent to Middle-earth, the two detailed to Far Harad had never been heard from again.

Or so it was said.

Borlath had specifically bidden him safeguard the little sea-serpent casket. To make sure it was delivered to Gandalf the Grey. The wizard, whom Aragorn was fully aware, was hand-in-glove with his foster father in watching over the welfare of - not just the elves - but all of Middle-earth.

The dragon's hoard was forgotten between one heartbeat and the next. The pearl slipped unnoticed from his fingers, rolling beyond the reach of the firelight.

"Borlath …" Aragorn's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth as fear, chased by fury, followed by scorn raced like a raging forest fire through his chaotic thoughts, burning off old suppositions faster than he could process the new ones. The fear that he had been blind-sided by a band of brigands shot through his thoughts again, but was instantly dispelled by fury, and a dose of shriveling scorn for his naiveté and infatuation with his own judgment.

But if Borlath was one of the two named _Ithryn Luin_, who was Harwan? Knowledge imparted from books or even tutors did not etch with the decisiveness of reality. And the elf's voicing of the name of the hidden city had evoked strong sentiment; so strong he had fled the cave as though pursued by old enemies.

Few old enough to remember the reality of Nargothrond yet walked Arda in earthbound bodies. And those who did, he knew from his foster father's reckoning. The grandmother of his beloved, Galadriel, and her consort, Celeborn, had made the crossing at the Helcaraxë, as had Círdan, the shipwright. Written lore averred the existence of another, who, alone, haunted the shores of Middle-earth, but it could not be.

Or could it? By his own admission, Borlath's ship navigated the long lost shores of Middle-earth. Had a lost wizard taken to crew a forgotten immortal? The possibility fired Aragorn's imagination.

What twist of fate had thrown a dispossessed prince of the drowned isles together with a First Age murderer and thief? "Though," he thought aloud, "the designation of thief begs the question of ownership."

Erestor and his father had always bidden him keep his mind open to the lessons of the universe; to listen for the internal tunings of the great song.

Was this such a time? Should he follow the elf? Press him for answers? Sleep on his speculations? Or disregard them completely?

Did he have the right to pursue what Harwan did not freely offer? It was, after all, Aragorn's own impetuous flight from home that had set them on this disastrous course. And many had perished as a result.

Sensitivity attempted to tip the scales away from following desire. Desire, though, coupled with curiosity, won. Aragorn retrieved the knife by his bed of palm fronds and slipped from the cave as well. It took a few moments of casting about to find the trail, for though Ithil hung low and full in the sky, her light only breeched the thickly grown canopy sporadically.

Aragorn spotted the elf immediately, as he pitched forward to hands and knees when his foot caught in a trailing vine at the edge of the desecrated strip of mountainside. He was not much given to seeing signs and portents in every little thing that happened to him, but he did wonder briefly, as he pushed up from the earthen floor, if the old forest was attempting to sway his determination.

Harwan gave no greeting as he climbed up and settled himself beside the elf on the ridge of rock facing out over the slope of the mountain. He could neither see, nor hear, the ocean waves from their perch, but he could imagine their continual shushing murmurs upon the shoreline. The stars, however, were so close he thought he might touch their cold fire. He leaned back on his hands and picked out the constellations that were already dear friends from his childhood in Rivendell.

The Vingilot appeared to move more quickly in this firmament than at home, though perhaps that was a trick of the vastness of the sky here. It arched above them like a purple canopy upon which diamonds had been stitched so thickly not even the Ainur would be able to count them.

The mariner's mast had tipped over the edge of the world when finally Harwan spoke. "You have the gift of silence, too, I see. That is a rare thing in one so young. Your patience, however, is driving me slowly mad. Give voice to your queries; I do not promise to answer them, but I will consider their merit."

Aragorn grinned inwardly at the compliment wrapped in a complaint, but held his peace a little longer. It would not do to blurt out the foremost question beleaguering his thoughts, better to lead up to it if he wished for it to gain merit in the eyes of the elf.

"How did you meet Borlath?" he asked instead.

The question was innocuous enough, but the elf was well aware of where it would eventually lead. He answered anyway, truthfully, not in the least surprised at the diplomacy evidenced in this first query. "In the southern most port city of Harad, long ago," he added, not averse to lingering in those memories.

"Will you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Of your meeting, of how it came to be. How it is that you sail with him."

"Perhaps; if you would like to tell me how much you have deduced thus far." Harwan had an inkling the youth had grasped far more than was potentially good for him, but that could not be helped now.

The news of Nargothrond had caught him completely off guard. Though they had never taken the time to explore the underground caverns honeycombing the island, Borlath's crew had ranged over every bit of it above ground. They had found nothing to indicate any part of the hidden city had survived the cataclysm that had drowned Númenor, burying half the then-known world under a depthless ocean.

He could not call back his careless reveal, but neither would he further endanger the youngster if there was anything to salvage.

"I do not believe I tell you anything you do not already know." Aragorn paused to debate the best avenue of his own revelations. "In my studies, I learned there were five Istari sent to Middle-earth at the beginning of the Third Age. Two, known as the _Ithryn Luin,_ traveled with Curunír, to the far eastern lands. They were never heard from again, though Curunír, who is now known as Saruman, returned. No one seems to know for certain if they lived or died; if they yet foment unrest amongst Sauron's minions, or have joined with the forces of the dark lord."

In the starlit darkness, Aragorn saw the glitter of eyes turned toward him, though the face was in shadow and he could not see the assessment taking place in the grey depths.

"Is Borlath one of the Ithryn Luin? And if so, what happened to the other?"

"I suspect we are not yet finished with your deductions," Harwan observed, "yet you obscure with fresh questions."

Aragorn inclined his head. "Will you answer them?"

The sailor turned his gaze back the stars, holding back a disquieting sigh. "Aye, Borlath is as you suspect. He has not used his Istari name in a thousand years and may never again. As for the other, Pallando, he fell to Sauron's sway. But 'tis a sad tale, you may wish it unheard if I burden your tender ears with it." He was of two minds whether to share the story. Guilt, that he had allowed himself to be so carried back in time that he had carelessly exposed the innocence of this youth to his identity, vied with the guilt of withholding the history the young one so obviously thirsted to hear first hand. Perhaps the cautionary age-old tale of Pallando would serve as a fair distraction.

Harwan took a moment to sift through the many tales he could share, for bridle and bit that might curb the enthusiasm of the youngster for old history, or at least keep him from repeating it. Shifting his gaze down the mountain, he returned again, in his mind, to a lifetime ago, for he had lived several lifetimes in his long exile.

"The _Ithryn Luin_ had been taxed by the Valar to penetrate the ranks of Sauron's minions, as you describe them, to determine, if possible, the extent of the Dark Lord's presence in the far south of Middle-earth. Perhaps I chanced to be in the port city when they disembarked; perhaps it was the will of the Valar. However it happened, we met and forged fast friendships, drawn together, I suppose, as foreigners often are in a hostile land. I had little else to do and so cast my lot with the Istari against an old enemy. It did not take long to inveigle our way into the lower ranks of the worshippers Sauron had seduced among the Haradrim."

Aragorn watched the immortal countenance with the eyes of a hawk, noting every shift of muscle and sinew as memory surged and waned with the telling. He might be one of the few humans on earth to know the true story of the _Ithryn Luin_. He wanted to embed it deep in his memory.

"Pallando had a gift for marshalling men to a cause. He could persuade a man to purchase sand he already owned and became quickly entrenched in his role, his prowess noted and rewarded by the Master himself. Perhaps he was bewitched, perhaps merely seduced as the others were, by the power bestowed with each rise in the hierarchy. With every new level attained, the rewards became more integral to rising further – I will not tell you of the acts of degradation he began to perform in order to rise higher, it is not necessary to the tale. Suffice it to say he gained a wife, and in the natural course of events, they had a child. Eventually, for the price of their lives, Pallando betrayed us."

Aragorn twitched, recognizing, from the agonized look in the ancient eyes, that a lot of sordid ground had just been covered in a rather succinctly expunged manner.

He did not interrupt.

Harwan's lips twitched in a half smile, as if he knew impetuous words had been stilled, and applauded, however silently, their stifling. "We escaped, after a time, with the help of the Haradrim who had worked closely with us. By then, we had learned of the many captives Sauron held and the_ Ithron_ was determined to free them or die in the endeavor. It did not matter over much to me if I lived or died, I had long desired to depart this life, so it was natural to again throw my lot in with Alatar."

"Borlath's crew," Aragorn said softly, into the silence that followed.

"Aye, some," Harwan replied eventually, "the elven among us." He was again surprised at the level of perception in one so young. "Much of that first crew is long gone beyond the circles of this world."

"You return, though, to free others as time passes. What happened to Pallando?" The narration did not continue and Aragorn thought for a moment, the elf would not resume. "Pallando?" he repeated, voice pitched so low it might have been a whisper of the breeze.

A furrow creased the ancient, unlined brow. "You _are_ far-seeing, for one so young." Harwan picked at a stone wedged in a crack running along the top of the rock.

A mask descended upon the stiff features, dissolving also, the palpable anguish in the voice, so it was again flat, completely devoid of emotion when Harwan continued. "Pallando serves still. He has become a formidable foe since the Dark Lord's spirit was unhoused at The Last Alliance. It becomes harder and harder to release his newly acquired servants from indenture."

"But that does not stop you from returning."

"Nay, it does not," Harwan agreed, though he offered nothing further.

At length Aragorn asked tentatively, "Am I wrong in believing that you know more than the history of Nargothrond?"

Harwan closed his eyes briefly. Beside him, the colt all but quivered with suppressed anticipation.

Aragorn waited with bated breath. He had wondered, occasionally, about the heavy pall hanging over the sailor's song. It had been muted to nothing more than a dreary, endlessly repeating pattern in a minor key. But he had equated it with those he had heard among the inhabitants of Lindon: the deep, slow-moving song of the blacksmith he had worked for in order to earn his passage, the trickling songs of the tavern denizens, and the nearly stifled song of the bawdy mistress with whom he had secured lodgings.

Few mortals were cognizant of the great Song, much less their own contributions to the harmonies and discords that knit together, or pulled apart - as was often the case among his kind - the very fibers of the earth. But in his experience among the elves, life songs were arias of light and beauty, becoming more and more intricate as their lives slowly developed in close harmony with the music of the Ainur.

Aragorn, with new eyes and ears, experimentally hummed a countermeasure to the elf's tarnished song.

Harwan half rose, those far-seeing eyes gone hard and implacable. "Cease! I have no wish to feel again and no need for a tune-up from the likes of you, impudent puppy!"

Aragorn desisted at once, immediately submissive to the power he sensed roiling behind the hissed command; but he heard plainly the thread of anguish that underscored the harsh indictment.

He let silence engulf them again, settle heavily between them, before asking, with the instinctual resonance of a healer seeking to staunch the flow of blood from a mortal wound, "Will you tell me _your_ story?"

He had been weeks, now, in the company of this elf, and while the revelation of a ghost legend come to life had been startling, some deeply imprinted primal intuition bade him voice the offer.

The elf sighed and ceased trying to prize the pebble from its tight quarters. "It is a long and sordid tale, Master Aragorn; not fit for human tongue to shape, nor ears to hear."

Neither by breath nor blink did Aragorn betray the curiosity instantly besetting him. He sat perfectly still, waiting. Willing himself to become still as a stone, a presence no more threatening than the stars overhead.

"You are very young; barely conversant with the power of words. You do not understand their puissance. Spilled words cannot be retrieved, nor their power undone."

"I will think no more or less of you for knowing your story," Aragorn offered. "A wound left to fester, poisons the whole. I am not yet a full-fledged healer," he confided, "I left my home before completing that training. But I have some natural skill – or so my Lord Elrond has assured me. I _am_ capable of listening without judgment."

It was the gaze of a First Age elf, the shell of Harwan momentarily transparent, that travelled slowly from Aragorn's hands, resting on his bent knees, to the crown of his shorn head.

"You are a prince of Númenor, kin to Elrond by virtue of the linage of Elros. You have the look of your many-times-removed grandsire at your age. You must have inherited the gift of healing from your even-further-removed Maia grandmother; Elros had little use for the elven arts."

A sigh, vaster than the deserts of Harad, deeper than the depthless oceans, rived the elf; Harwan was once more thoroughly entrenched in the immortal incarnation.

"One day, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, you will be fully-invested in your life's work as a healer. I thank you for your concern, but I am not at liberty to tell my story." One eyebrow lifted, the expression conveying equal parts closure and commiseration.

The sting of disappointment was sharp, but Aragorn reined it in; his first considered act, though he knew it not, of an adept and merciful healer. "As you will."

Harwan squinted at the first light of dawn beginning to brighten on the far horizon. "Tell me of your findings. Is Nargothrond much intact? Or have the ages destroyed it completely?" It was a pitiful substitute as subjects went, but it was the best he could do.

Clearly the living history book sitting beside him had no desire to be read. With the resiliency of youth, Aragorn turned his mind resolutely to the find he had so recently discovered, some of the exhilaration trickling back as he recalled the structure he had explored so briefly. "I am surprised I have not come upon it before, in my explorations, for the bones of the structure, though much overgrown, appeared to be open to the sky. The walls were mostly covered in vegetation, much of it dead, fortunately. Else I might have been trapped there for some time."

"Your torch failed again?" Amusement colored the simple statement, though Harwan refrained from pointing out – yet again – that he had warned the young one against straying beyond the limits of his light.

"Aye," Aragorn chuckled in accord, "again. I know, I know. One of these days I _will_ get stuck somewhere."

"'Ware that happening," Harwan cautioned, the momentarily obliterated twinkle returning to his eyes. "I cannot abide small spaces and will not come to your rescue. You will starve to death in your heedlessness."

"So you have warned me countless times. And yet, the lure of the unknown draws me on." The deliberate innuendo was probably unwise under the circumstances, but disappointment, while caged, would not be silenced.

Harwan only raised an eyebrow, adding a rueful smile of acknowledgement. "I suppose you will have to learn from experience, but I will tell you now, brooding bars the way of contentment. It is a useless occupation." The sailor rose, stretching as though relieving muscles aching with ages of accumulated tension. "Waste as little time as possible on it; your mind will be far better occupied with more important things. I believe I will retire for what if left of the night."

Aragorn twisted his head around to watch the sailor disappear, blending into the shadows beneath the trees as only an elf could do. _A tantalizingly sealed scroll,_ he lamented silently, _a living historical recorder who might well be the only one who could recount – almost from beginning to end – the history of Middle-earth. _

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: I'm so very sorry for the length of time it has taken to resolve this WIP. Any readers left have my promise that I will never, ever, ever (are you hearing shades of a Taylor Swift song?) do this to you again. Only finished stories will be posted from this profile from here on out. My humbly grateful regard to all of you who've stuck with it here to the bitter end. _

_And here is a bit from the end of the previous chapter:_

…_Harwan only raised an eyebrow, adding a rueful smile of acknowledgement. "I suppose you will have to learn from experience, but I will tell you now, brooding bars the way of contentment. It is a useless occupation." The sailor rose, stretching as though relieving muscles aching with ages of accumulated tension. "Waste as little time as possible on it; your mind will be far better occupied with more important things. I believe I will retire for what if left of the night."_

_Aragorn twisted his head around to watch the sailor disappear, blending into the shadows beneath the trees as only an elf could do. __A tantalizingly sealed scroll,__ he lamented silently, __a living historical record who might well be the only one who could recount the history of Middle-earth from the beginning. _

_Chapter 14_

Never one to sit idle, Aragorn had made his way back to the ruins of Nargothrond from inside the caverns and climbed to the top, using the dead vines like the monkeys he had read about in the places in Harad where the giant mûmakil were bred. The bottom of the steep ravine had been covered in sharp, thorny bushes and required a good deal of circumnavigation to avoid completely shredding his clothing, though he must have emerged onto the beach a wild spectacle indeed, for the far-seeing elf had dropped his fishing line hastily at the sight of the bleeding, porcupine'd figure trudging toward him.

Harwan had made him strip and go immediately to bath in the salt water of the ocean once the last of the barbs had been drawn from flesh.

The elf's curiosity had been roused, though he knew no good could come of it. He had visited kin in Nargothrond from time to time, and, driven by memories probably best left moldering in the dark places of his soul, had returned with Aragorn to hack a trail through the entangling understory of brush.

Some of the vines grew as thick as a man's arm and could be sliced and spliced so as to create makeshift rope ladders, which they did, though an afternoon's exploration accompanied by Aragorn with his excited questions about the distant relations he shared in common with his foster family had quickly extinguished Harwan's enthusiasm. _His_ family history, stretching back to Valinor and Alqualondë, was nothing he had wished to contemplate; particularly not Lúthien's treatment at the hands of his younger brothers.

He did not return again to Nargothrond and the book that was Harwan remained stubbornly closed in the days and weeks that followed that revelatory night and their one afternoon of exploration.

The elf's refusal to return, however, had not diminished Aragon's adventuresome spirit. He had returned again and again to the hidden city, exploring every nook and cranny he could squeeze himself through.

The youth stretched limbs cramped from a long day spent in the ruins as he studied the wall where he had begun marking off the days since the shipwreck. Ithil had waxed and waned and waxed again, though the wall showed markings for less than half that time. He glanced suspiciously at the busily carving elf across the fire.

Harwan did not so much as raise his head, though in the manner of all the fair folk, he knew himself observed. "Why do you attempt to bend time to your will?"

"I do not," Aragorn replied, more than hint of exasperation in his voice, "I am only trying to keep track of how long we have been here."

"To what purpose? You will neither lengthen nor shorten our stay by measuring it."

"I know that." Irritably, Aragorn tossed the charcoal back into the fire. If Harwan did not wish him to keep the tally, there would be no use attempting it further. "I cannot change what happened any more than I am in control of how long we remain here. Sometimes though, knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is neither friend nor foe."

"Then you are keeping an historical record."

"Aye, though I realize it was not accurate, since I did not start at the beginning." Restlessly Aragorn moved to add wood to the fire. "Perhaps one day I will wish to tell others of this experience."

The one thing that had changed significantly with the revelation of Harwan's elven heritage had been their ability to communicate. The elf spoke every language Aragorn knew, fluently, and had any number of others at his command. On this point, he had ceded to the young one's pestering and was teaching him far more than just the odd language of the Hadrim. It would be many years before Aragorn gained enough understanding to recognize the gift for what it was.

Harwan lifted his head, seeking eye contact. "I am sorry. It did not occur to me that you might wish to keep an historical record. It was also thoughtless to amuse myself at your expense. If you wish to reconstruct your calendar, we have been here ninety-seven days in the way time is measured by mortals."

More than three months, Aragorn thought wearily, bending to retrieve the piece of charcoal. If the ship had merely been battered, they would have been back by now. Without a doubt the ship and crew had sunk.

"It's useless," he said on a sigh. "We will be here at least a year. I had hoped…" he trailed off as the mindless words struck him and he laughed hollowly. Still, he retrieved another piece of charcoal and righted the tally.

"You had hoped what?" Harwan inquired softly. He did not prompt again when the silence lengthened, merely waited with a patience that came naturally only to an immortal.

Aragorn lifted his chin, almost as if in defiance, though the toe of his boot rubbed restively at the floor. "I had hoped they survived somehow."

"Do not let despair crawl in through this door you have opened. It is not a pleasant bedfellow." Harwan returned to his whittling.

Soon after the pair of dice had appeared, eating utensils and plates had been brought out to accommodate meal times, and shortly after that, a new bow had taken shape, though it had neither the agility nor power of the salt-water ruined bow.

The reticent elf had pointed Aragorn in the direction of fibrous plant whose leaves could be torn into narrow strips and woven into a malleable bow string. It had taken much trial and error on Aragorn's part before the string had acquired the strength to resist the draw, but its fragility had also augmented his competence with a bow.

Aragorn's weapon of choice had always been the sword; however, when a string required a day to create and gave no more than a draw or two, one quickly learned to sight accurately or go hungry.

Despite the ship captain's intimation that Aragorn's companion had been too long a sailor to accommodate himself to land again, Harwan had quietly and competently met each new challenge. And Aragorn, yet an eager student in all things pertaining to the natural world, had soaked up the impromptu lessons like a wick soaking oil.

An incident early on in their enforced adventure, with a turtle and a much longer swim than Aragorn anticipated, had winkled out another of the elf's inestimable talents.

At Harwan's amused provocation, Aragorn had mounted the back of a giant sea tortoise, riding the lumbering form down the beach and into the water, holding onto the shell until it dove languorously down into the shimmering, green depths. The turtle had not taken him terribly far out into the ocean, but returning against the tide had been far more difficult than either Harwan or Aragorn had anticipated.

Harwan had dragged the exhausted and badly sunburned youth from the clutches of waves not particularly anxious to give up their prize. And Aragorn had discovered the elf housed a veritable wellspring of medicinal knowledge.

He did not remember much of the initial incident, only its aftermath, as the combination of severe muscle fatigue and sun exposure had engendered a light swoon. He did recall spending several days covered in a sticky, gelatinous salve that Harwan had informed him would keep several layers of his skin from peeling off. He had thought there had been more than just the salve at work, especially as he had emerged from the experience with nothing more serious than a deep tan and a deeper appreciation for resisting Harwan's sense of humor. But while the elf had agreed to teach him the more arcane uses of the island's bountiful botany, Harwan had not been forthcoming regarding the sorcerous nature of his healing skills.

Aragorn had learned to channel the earth's energy in his own healing practice, but he'd sensed in Harwan a deeper connectivity than he knew even from his foster father's healing hands. He had wanted desperately to ask if it was just Ages of experience, or if it might not be that the elf was that much more in tune with all life force due to acquaintance with the Singers themselves in another lifetime.

Harwan had consistently turned aside all questions, though with less vehemence after their night on the mountainside. And Aragorn, employing that newly emerging maturity, had eventually quit attempting to pry open the clamshell the elf so often resembled.

Routine became complacency, complacency became peace and Aragorn found himself yielding to a softening of spirit, sensing something unfolding that perhaps would have gone unnoticed had it not been for the enforced solitude.

The map of Númenor had revived the history lessons he had found so fascinating as a boy, and recalled the depthless sadness that had always enveloped Erestor when the subject of Númenor was on the day's lesson plan. It had recalled to mind, too, how the few pictures he had found of the ancient island had whetted his appetite for more.

He had since visited the King's House in Armenelos, viewed the great ships of Rómenna, and wandered the quarries of Forostar. And begun making mental notes against some distant future when the things he was learning might influence a decision on behalf of a kingdom. Thus he had stowed away a wealth of wisdom as he walked the vineyards of Hyarnustar, Mittalmar's sheep pasturage, wandered amongst the merchants of the great port city of Andúnië, returning again and again on subsequent visits to Sorontil, where he had spent long hours engrossed in watching eaglets learn to fly.

"_You are Aragorn, son of Arathorn, chieftain of the Dúnedain; heir of Elendil and Isildur. To you belongs the forsaken high throne of Gondor and Anor." _The words had woken instincts buried deep beneath layers of puissant protections set to guard him in his youth. With solitude and time for reflection, instincts buried with intent long ago, to be revealed only when needed, had begun to prod his conscious thoughts. Generations of embedded wisdom and knowledge, stored in the very bones of his ancestors, had begun to well up like the spring that fed the pool where they bathed.

Trusting those instincts was a bit like watching the eaglets learning to fly. The tumble from the nest might be a short free fall before instinct opened wings and caught the air currents, or a long arduous descent before intuition whispered instruction in the fledgling ear.

It required an acknowledgement of his mortal frailties, but at the same time reinforced his ascendency, his right to bear the tokens passed down from father to son in a long line. And if fortune smiled upon him someday, the right to pass the Ring of Barahir and the sword of Narsil on to a son of his own.

The thought of fatherhood had startled him. He had little experience with children as there had been precious few born around the time of his fostering in the valley and those had been too small to be playmates for a rapidly growing mortal child. But watching the eaglets tumbling through the clear blue skies over the North Cape, the elders circling beneath the fledglings, ever alert to any serious malfunction in those first flights, drifting upward to bear-up a struggling eaglet, he thought again of his own childhood in Rivendell and could acknowledge with new understanding how often his family had born him up on wings of love and devotion. And knew with an aching longing, that he had been tutored in fathering by the very best.

Should he ever be blessed with progeny, the tenets of fatherhood had been lovingly tattooed on his own heart and would translate into practice with the same instinctual resonance that opened his heart now.

All these things he stored up in his heart, examining each new revelation for the kernel of truth from which it sprang.

Time acquired a new suppleness.

In an attempt to expand their menu choices, Harwan assured Aragorn the inner flesh of the pincer-waving, beach-crawlers was tasty if cooked. And sure enough, the flaky, slightly-sweet, slightly-salty meat turned out to be edible. There being an abundance of the things, they became a dietary staple, along with the seaweed Aragorn cultivated in his little rock-lined pool.

They began to cultivate edible wild plants and from Harwan, Aragorn learned the distillations and herbal remedies of the island's medicinal plants, increasing his herb lore half again, though many of the plants they found no longer grew on the continent. Aragorn learned to dry and preserve them as well and it did not take long for his pack to be overflowing again.

Often he swam with pods of extraordinarily friendly, bottle-nosed creatures that whistled like birds and barked like packs of wild dogs. When he forgot himself sufficiently, and found the ten-year-old again, he played chase with the long-legged birds that came every forenoon to poke about in the sand, eating the littlest pincer-wavers.

The measurement of time ceased, flowing from one day to the next in much the same way his youth had passed. And Aragorn was content to wait.

Having spent an Age or more in far Harad, Harwan had absorbed much of the Easterner's familiarity with signs and portents, and saw many things he did not share with Aragorn, crafting instead, subtle ways of adding to the instinctual knowledge he also saw bubbling to the surface. Because of it, Aragorn learned not only how to navigate a ship, his own creativity was stretched as Harwan tutored him in the making of crude, but effective, navigational tools.

One of the downed, high-elevation cedars, after months of long, intensive labor gouging out its innards became a serviceable canoe. They became quite adept at paddling out to sea in their improvised boat, and Aragorn learned to use a kamal, sometimes called the guiding line, Harwan had informed him, to estimate distances to land. From the kamal, the youngster had graduated to measuring angles, first with a cross-staff, then an octant put together with bits of the tin from Aragorn's shaving mirror and a casing carved from jatoba.

The weather became predictable under Harwan's tutelage, its patterns easily discernible to the practiced eye. Measurements of wind and tide evolved as second nature to Aragorn; he learned to descry the foretellings of the animal kingdom who were the first and most reliable and accurate predictors of bad weather.

He learned to find the art in the wood, as Harwan spoke of it, and put it to use making practice swords. Eventually Aragorn had worn down the elf's reticence to engage even in mock battles, and acquired a teacher whose skill far surpassed the Golden Legend's formidable talent. Which should have been unsurprising given that much of the elf's early life had been spent in combat.

Curiously, Glorfindel's lessons came back, too, as Aragorn's body, settling into its adult height and breadth, began to understand on a muscular level, how things worked together so his arm became an extension of his brain and thought became motion almost without effort.

And an ancient elf, long inured to the weariness he had borne for ages, began to find new pleasure in his existence.

Although Aragorn had grown up in semi-solitude, the only child among innumerable adults, the quality of his solitude had been different, for he had known always there _were_ adults to rely on. Harwan, while not malicious about it, left him to find his own way out of most of the scrapes he got himself into through curiosity or contrariness. And over the months and seasons that passed, turned the youth into a very self-reliant young adult.

A mild winter gave way to a showery spring. Aragorn's naming day passed, though he was not precisely certain of the actual day. And spring rolled into a hot, steamy summer.

According to the calendar on the wall in the cave, Ithil had waxed and waned nine times since their precipitous arrival.

Thinking about their extended stay now, as Aragorn sat fletching new arrow shafts in the shade of one of the towering pines bordering the wide stretch of beach sloping down to the sea, he realized they would not be here much longer.

Somewhere along their journey, the island had gone from expedient refuge, to a place of sanctuary, no longer resented as merely a way station, but fully embraced as a place of insight and respite. For here on these shores, _Aragon_ had emerged from the cocoon that was _Estel_, and come to accept and even appreciate the bubbling caldron of mixed ancestry he had inherited.

There was no anxiety anymore, when his thoughts strayed, as they often did, to the longed for reunion with _atarinya_ – not his _foster_ father, nor _adopted_ father – _my father_. Each new experience here on the island had broadened and deepened the perceptions of his heart and he had acquired a bone-deep understanding of what it meant to be raised as a son of the house of Elrond. He knew his welcome home would be untainted by bitterness on either side.

He knew, too, with a surety that made no logical sense, that there were before him, long years of toil and strife. But the knowledge did not daunt him as it might have done at the beginning of the voyage. He had been to the top of Meneltarma, and it had not required the ancient map maker's magic to transport him there. Experience had done that for him, taken him to the mountaintop, the ascent dramatically changing his perspective of himself and the world around him.

A shout from further down the beach interrupted his reverie so he straightened and laid aside the half-fletched arrow, rising to look out to the horizon where Harwan was pointing.

He saw nothing for several long minutes, though the elf continued to wave and point, as Harwan began running toward him, churning sand beneath flying feet – truly the fastest Aragorn had ever seen the sailor move.

"A ship! A ship comes!"

Straining his eyes, shielded from the glaring sun by a hand, Aragorn caught sight of a spec on the horizon, that rapidly became the full-bellied sails of a magnificent ship.

He met Harwan in the shallows, was caught up in a wild embrace by the taller, broader elf and whirled madly so they were both soaked from head to toe, their ecstatic laughter echoing off the calm water.

"Come! Let us make a feast for our rescuers!" Harwan commanded joyously as he released the youth. He judged that landfall was unlikely this day, for the ship would not reach them before nightfall and he did not want Aragorn dwelling overmuch on the fate of the crew.

And so they hurried and scurried like those little pincer-waving creatures, scuttling rapidly from pillar to post as they collected all their stores and prepared everything they had on hand.

Whether the Valar willed it or the winds out of the south were stronger over water than on land, the ship weighed anchor an hour before sunset, small shapes Aragorn's mortal eyes could make out only as ants swarming over the sides and down into the long boat that rapidly shoved off.

Harwan busied himself setting ablaze the bonfire they kept at the ready above the hightide mark, leaving Aragorn to wait anxiously in the shallows again, quivering like the young stallion he so often resembled.

Strain his mortal eyesight as he might, the tiny figure in the bow of the boat would not come into focus, until a piercing shaft of the setting sun gilded the tall frame, glinting off the gold buckles of a well-known pair of knee boots, proclaiming the identity beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Whooping with glee, Aragorn splashed back toward the beach to snatch up the elf and drag him into an inpromtu dance. "They live! They live! It is Borlath and company! And my brothers with them!" Not surprisingly, in his euphoric state, he failed to notice the sly smile that flashed across Harwan's habitually long face.

And as the sun sank in a flash of iridescent green, cloaking the far ship in shadowy night, the sailors in the long boat shifted oars and beached upon the wet sand.

"Well, Master Dúranu," the ship captain boomed as he hopped over the edge of the boat on dry land and claimed the first embraces from the shipwrecked pair. "Are you ready to sail on to Meneltarma?" Borlath, jostling aside the brothers vying for an opportunity to greet their wayward sibling, drew the youth toward the bonfire, the better to look him over. "You are in need of some better-fitting garments I see; you have filled out some in the interim," he observed.

Aragorn met the scrutiny with far more aplomb than he had nine long months ago. "Aye, the eating has been not so bad. And it is as you said," he offered with ungrudging immediacy, "I have been to the mountaintop and do not need stand upon that holy ground with my own two feet."

A grin split the mouth covered by a full beard, showing those juice-stained teeth, but it was to Harwan that Borloth gave his commendations. "You have done fine job, Master Harwan! A fine job indeed! I knew we would not have to wait the full year to return!" He hugged Aragorn again, hard, before twirling him into the embrace of his howling kin.

"Wait?" Aragorn managed breathlessly as he was hugged and pounded on the back simultaneously. "What do you mean wait to return?" This time he did catch the sly smile, as there was no longer even an attempt to hide. "You knew?" he demanded of his smirking ship mate.

Harwan merely shrugged and handed his co-conspirator a newly-opened bottle.

"Aye, he made us wait, indeed," Elrohir shouted above the mad capering of the entire crew as more bottles were opened and the elixir of celebration began to flow freely.

"In Lindon, where he returned after fleeing the storm he likely conjured," Elladan barked.

"I did no such thing," Borlath refuted, pouring half of the bottle down his throat as he sputtered, "and I will gladly refund your gold since you appear to have no wish to journey on. Crewing for the first half of the journey should cover all expenses."

"Father was livid when he arrived back in Lindon without the precious cargo entrusted to him," Elladan announced, pouring the rest of the bottle down his own gullet.

"The ship had to be re-outfitted from stem to stern; we took a lot of damage in that storm, nearly had to rebuild her from keel up! I did not make you wait longer than was necessary to be watertight and shipshape again, so do not be filling the young one's ears with false tales."

Aragorn grabbed the ship captain again and whirled him gleefully about the bonfire. "Keep your gold. I do not care if you _did_ make us wait," he whispered loudly, but for Borlath's ears alone. "It has been a profitable and beneficial time out of time. Whatever your machinations, even if you plotted with atarinya on this, I do not care. But there _will be_ a price, perhaps to be collected years hence, for I know who you are and where you operate and I will find you again when I have need of you. I know who Harwan is as well, and will not hesitate to use it as a bargaining tool," he said pleasantly, releasing the wizard. "It would not do to forget the instrucment you have helped to forge."

Borlath threw back his head and roared with unfettered laughter. "It is a bargain well made, young one!" He fisted a hand to his heart and bowed his head, dark eyes twinkling brightly in the firelight. "I will await your pleasure, Prince of Númenor."

The End


End file.
